Midnight Star
by Lady Dawson
Summary: Bella never came to Forks. Instead, her cousin Susan Dawson moved in with her uncle . And after moving to Forks, she met the Cullens and found herself drawn to Edward. But the Cullens aren't the only ones with a secret . . . Edward/OC. Abandoned.
1. Moving to Forks

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter One: Moving to Forks

Look, I never asked to be a hero. I never asked to have my life be one battle after another and have to fight monsters practically every day of my life. I mean, seriously, who wants their life to be like that? It's only kids that are bored out of their mind that actually _want_ to be a hero and for their lives to be extraordinary. But for me, I didn't really get a choice in the matter. Because of my unique heritage, I was give a special destiny, a destiny that few people are granted and a destiny that would guarantee me heartache, loneliness, anguish, and torment the likes of which few could ever imagine.

Now, don't get me wrong. When I look back on everything, now that it's all over, I know that if I had to make the choice between living a normal, everyday, average life and a dangerous, perilous one, if I had to choose between being a hero and being the normal girl that my mother so desperately wanted, I would have to choose to lead the extraordinary life that I was blessed with, because while it did grant me more dangers than I could ever have imagined, it also gave me friends that I never could have dreamed of and it would also lead me to the love of my life.

Even though I'm probably not going to make it to the age of twenty, I'm not sorry for anything that happened. I'm not sorry that the war erupted around me from the time I was twelve because everything that I went through pushed me to finding the only happiness that my life would grant me.

My name is Susan Dawson, demigod daughter of Poseidon, god of the seas. Technically, I wasn't supposed to be born. None of us were. The children of the Big Three, that is. Right after World War II, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades made an agreement not to sire any more children with mortal women, but . . . well, sometimes gods fall off the wagon. And I wasn't the first child born to my father after he made the agreement; I was the second. And Dad wasn't the first of his brothers to break his promise.

Back then, when he fell in love with my mother, Mom was apparently very beautiful and compassionate and sweet. Dad says that she was one of the finest women that he had ever seen, rivalling my brother Percy's mother.

But that was a long time ago and to be honest, not a trace of what drew Poseidon to my mother remains in her. I guess she got tired of having a half-human daughter who was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD. By the time that I was twelve years old, she had completely forgotten about me, forgot about my dad. All she cared about anymore was parties and having fun, not caring about me anymore.

It didn't bother me so badly until she married this rich artist. After she married him, she never had to worry about anything. He provided her with everything and anything that she could have wanted. I was twelve years old when my little sister Vanessa was born.

I remember when I saw her for the first time, when I poked my head around the door in the hospital and saw my mother with Vanessa in her arms. She looked happier than I had ever seen her, with her husband next to her and her daughter in her arms. It was the image of the perfect family. Mother, father, daughter . . . but not me.

No, I was the one on the outside, looking in at the one joy that I had been banned from by the one person who should have taken me in and protected me from getting hurt. Mom was supposed to keep me safe from harm, yet here she was hurting me by her own rejection.

That was the night that I ran away. When Jarrod took me home and told me that he was going back to the hospital to spend the night with my mother, I packed up the few items that I wanted to take with me: a couple of changes of clothes, a few of my favourite books—being dyslexic, it was hard for me to read, but I still loved it—a couple of CDs, my headphones, and the golden seashell necklace that had been a present from my father.

I'd gotten it on my last birthday, when Mom proclaimed right when she was cutting up the cake that she was going to have a baby. There was a package amongst the other presents. On the brown wrapping, in unfamiliar handwritten, was written: _To Susan. May this give you the courage to find your way through the darkness. From your father._

Needless to say, I was more than a little shocked, because my mother had told me that my father had died before I was born, but she hadn't even noticed the package, too busy with the guests congratulating her to worry about some little package from my absent father.

So I quickly pushed the package into my pocket to be opened later, when I was alone. It was small enough so that I could put it in my pocket, feeling like a jewellery box as I touched it.

Later, I found out that's exactly what it was and inside was the prettiest necklace I had ever seen. It was a pure white seashell hanging upon a golden chain and as I touched it, I felt stronger, somehow. Bolder, more confident.

But somehow, I knew that if my mother found out that I had it, she wouldn't hesitate to throw it in the garbage, so I kept it to myself, only wearing it to school or when she wasn't around. Every time I wore it, though, I felt safe and warm and protected, as though my father were watching over me, keeping me safe from harm.

When I had those few things packed, I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder, shrugging my jean jacket on before I left our house and disappeared into the dark New York streets.

It didn't take them long to find me. First, I got attacked by a Fury and that's when I found out that the necklace that Dad had sent me wasn't a necklace at all, but a sword made of celestial bronze. I managed to decapitate her and get to safety, but then, I got tracked down by a satyr named Eli.

He managed to convince me to come with him and he took me to Camp Half-Blood, where all of the demigod children go. Some of us are runaways, others just spend the summer holidays there, and then there are some who just have too strong aromas to go into the outside world. If we would, then we would be attacked by monsters galore.

After I got to camp, somebody decided to be funny and invite a hellhound into the camp and I managed to kill it and that was when Dad claimed me as his daughter.

Needless to say, everybody was shocked that Poseidon had sired another child. After Percy had been claimed the year before, nobody had expected that another child of the Big Three would arrive, since it was forbidden. Yet here I was, claimed by the Sea God, and I moved into Cabin Three with my older half-brother Percy.

I spent the next couple of years training to be a hero—learning how to use a sword, bows and arrows, etc.—and going on quests to preserve Olympus, but eventually, I discovered the real reason why the Big Three agreed not to have any more demigod children. Turns out that there was this prophecy that said that the next one of us that would reach sixteen would either destroy Olympus or save it.

I freaked out when I discovered this, because there weren't very many choices as to who the hero of the prophecy could be.

Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

There was Percy and me, the son and daughter of Poseidon.

And there was Bianca and Nico di Angelo, the children of Hades.

When she was twelve years old, Bianca joined the Hunters of Artemis, thus ensuring that she would cease to age, unless she disobeyed her vows to the goddess and then she would be stripped of her immortality. But she was killed only a few weeks later, during a quest to save Artemis. I wasn't there, but I got the details from Percy. It was only later that we discovered that she and Nico were Hades' children.

Now, Thalia has a complicated story. Technically, she's seven years older than I am, but when she was twelve years old, she was turned into a tree as she lay dying after saving her friends from a Cyclops, but seven years later, she was released from the tree, appearing to be fourteen or fifteen years old instead of the nineteen that she should have been. Everyone thought that the prophecy was referring to her, but she chose to join the Hunters of Artemis as well, the night before her sixteenth birthday, thus retaining her fifteen year old status for all time. And all eyes turned to Percy, Nico, and me.

Since Percy was the oldest of us, I naturally assumed that he was the one of the prophecy. And when the final battle settled down upon us, it turned out that I was both right and wrong, because while the prophecy did refer to my brother, none of us were the hero.

It turned out to be Luke, son of Hermes, and our enemy for the past four years and who was being possessed by Kronos. At the very last second, Luke chose to destroy his invulnerability—long story—and in so doing, he saved Olympus and fulfilled the prophecy, destroying Kronos in the process. But he's not dead, though. Try as you might, you can never destroy a Titan.

After the final battle, I went to go see my mother, to make an attempt to settle things between us. But I only made it as far as the front door. Through the window, I saw two little girls playing in the living room, smiling and laughing as they played with their dolls. One was blonde, like Jarrod, and there was a lot of him in her face, but she had my mother's chocolate brown eyes. The other had dark brown hair, like my mother's, like mine, and she was a carbon copy of my mother, with the same chocolate brown eyes as Mom and her sister.

I needed no more confirmation as to the identity of the little girls. My younger half-sisters. The blonde was Vanessa, but the younger of the two I didn't know. She was born after I had left.

Mom came into the living room then and she saw me standing by the front door, looking in. Her gaze hardened and her mouth turned very thin as she walked over to the window.

For one moment, our eyes met and the hurt that I had kept buried underneath came rising to the surface.

And then, my mother broke the gaze, reaching for the cord and she snapped the blinds shut, blocking me from seeing into the house and turning her back on me, never to look back. I turned around and walked back down to where Percy was waiting for me, my constant supporter. He took me back to camp and I never went back.

I had tried to make peace with my mother. No one could say that I didn't try, but she wouldn't even let me in the front door. She didn't want me around her normal family, to put them in constant danger. And while part of me was angry at her for turning her back on me, the other part of me, the good girl part, understood where she was coming from.

The war against the Titans took a greater toll on me than I never would have thought possible. Some of my best and oldest friends died right in front of me, some of them killed in such destructive and horrible ways that they were barely even recognisable when they were found.

Valentine, daughter of Aphrodite, was killed with her boyfriend Brandon, son of Apollo, fighting off some hellhounds. This struck me harder than the others, because Val was one of my first friends here. Peter, son of Hephaestus, was killed by a renegade demigod, leaving his girlfriend Aria, daughter of Hermes, to mourn him.

And then there was Stefan Dalloway, son of Athena.

He was my _first _friend at camp, a fact I always found ironic since our parents don't get along. Poseidon and Athena are bitter rivals. (But then again, Percy's girlfriend Annabeth is a daughter of Athena.) Stefan took me under his wing, showed me around camp, taught me swordplay and helped me to make friends after everyone started looking at me like I had three heads after Dad claimed me. For a time, I thought we'd become something more, but . . .

But then everything changed. When I turned fourteen, when it became clear that we were heading into war, I discovered the truth behind Stefan's friendship with me. I found him sending a message to Luke and confronted him. Very reluctantly, he confirmed what I had suspected: that he was a spy for Luke and had only become friends with me so he could sway me to their side.

He begged me to come with him, to side with Luke and Kronos, promising me that we would stay together. And when I refused, he taunted me about all of the things that had hurt me: my mother's betrayal, the rejection of the other kids when they found out that I was Poseidon's daughter . . . the fact that I'd only seen my father twice and only for very brief occasions.

When I still refused to side with him, he attacked. We battled our way through Camp Half-Blood, confusing people as they scrambled away from us, watching as we fought ferociously.

Eventually, I disarmed him, knocking his sword out of his hand, landing a few feet away.

I probably should have killed him. Maybe if I had then some of my friends would still be alive. In fact, I know Peter would be, because Stefan was the demigod who had killed him. But at the time, all I could think of was that he was my friend and I couldn't just kill him out of cold blood while he was defenceless.

So I let him go. Many people thought that was stupid of me and Aria blamed me for not killing him when I had the chance, saying that Peter would still be alive if I had. And in that sense, I guess she's right, but I just couldn't kill somebody that couldn't defend themselves. She couldn't accept that decision, so that's why we're not talking anymore.

Only a few of my friends survived the war, including one of my other best friends Briar Moss, son of Demeter. He, Valentine, Stefan, and I were friends from the very beginning and he and Val stood by me when Stefan betrayed us. Then Valentine was killed. I was so relieved when I found out that he was still alive. I didn't know what would've happened if I lost the only best friend that I had left.

Stefan survived, too, and was put on trial for his crimes against Olympus. I thought that he would show some remorse for what he had done, thought that he might be sorry for everything that had happened, but the only thing he was sorry for, apparently, was that Luke had turned the tables in the end. And so, he was banished. Forbidden from every having contact with half-bloods, unwelcome at camp, doomed to walk the earth alone. It was the same decree that many other renegade demigods were given. The few that showed remorse for what they had done were allowed back at camp, but under probation. They weren't allowed to go on quests and they were to be watched by their counsellors at all times.

I wish that I could say that his betrayal didn't hurt me, didn't cut me to the core, but it did. He was the first friend that I ever had and he had turned his back on me. If I never saw him again, that would be fine with me.

After the war and after I went to go see my mother, I went back to camp and tried to resume my normal life there, but it just got to be too much. For the first time in my life, Camp Half-Blood felt like a prison and everything began taking its toll on me. Losing all of my friends, my best friend's betrayal . . . the war itself . . . it just got to be too much. I had to get out of there and Percy and Briar teamed up against me, telling me that I needed to get out of camp for a bit.

And I knew that they were right. I needed to get out of there, at least just for a little bit. My dreams were plagued with nightmares that caused me to wake up screaming, I was barely even eating, and I wasn't even smiling anymore. But where could I go? Mom wouldn't let me go home and it wasn't like I had anywhere else to go.

Chiron solved the problem for me. He had found out years before that I had an uncle living in Washington, just in case I ever wanted to leave camp and try my hand at a normal life. And understanding the need to clear my head, he contacted my uncle Charlie Swan.

Charlie was my mother's older half-brother, the result of my grandmother's first marriage whereas my mom had been by her second. He lived in Forks, Washington, working as the Chief of Police there. But my mom hadn't had contact with her brother in years, even when I lived with her, so he didn't even know that she had another daughter from a previous relationship. At least, he didn't until Chiron contacted him. But he was more than willing to take me in, especially after he learned that my mother had rejected me and I had fled the house.

He asked for no explanations, no details about why Mom had rejected me or why I had run away, simply offered me an invitation to come and live with him and with much pushing from Briar and Percy, I accepted it, packing up my bags and at the end of the summer, I took a bus to Washington.

It probably would've been a lot faster just to take a plane, but that's not exactly the best idea for Poseidon's children. Zeus doesn't like Percy and me flying through his realm, so I've never flown before, except on Pegasus. If I got on a plane, there's a good chance that I wouldn't come down alive.

I was a bit nervous when I left camp, since outside of quests, I hadn't left camp since I was twelve years old. And I was _really_ nervous about going to high school, because I hadn't been to school since I ran away. But I knew that I had to get away. I had to get away from camp. My mind needed time to recover. _I_ needed time to recover.

And so, I said goodbye to Percy and Briar, both of whom were going home to their parents' houses for the school year, which was an unusual for Briar, because his dad travels a lot, and climbed on the bus that would take me to Port Angeles, a couple of hours drive from Forks, waving goodbye to them as I left New York.

As the bus pulled out of the station, a feeling settled over me, something that I wasn't expecting. I wasn't just leaving New York, but I was leaving behind the girl that I had always been and moving towards the young woman that I was slowly becoming. I was leaving everything that I'd ever known behind and moving towards the beginning of something new.

Charlie was waiting for me the second that I disembarked, easy to spot thanks to his resemblance to my mother. It was easy to spot the similarity between them. Both of them were tall and dark-haired, though my mother's was a few shades lighter than his was. His was almost black while hers had been a neat shade of dark brown, which I had inherited from her. But a lot of the same features were in his face and even his eyes, the same chocolate brown that both my sisters had, were the same.

"You must be Susan," he said as I nervously walked up to him. He looked just as nervous as I felt, but his smile was friendly and welcoming as I nodded. "I'm Charlie."

He surprised me by pulling me into a hug, but I didn't pull away, allowing him to hug me before stepping away, looking at me up and down, studying my profile carefully. Uneasiness swept through me and I stepped away from his examination. A wry smile made its way across his face as he noticed my awkwardness.

"Sorry," he apologised. "You look a lot like your mom."

I was surprised to hear that, mostly because I know for a fact that I don't look anything like my mom, save for the dark brown hair that I wear long. I generally keep it in a ponytail, but thanks to spending forty-something straight hours on a bus, it had fallen out of its neat ponytail, making it a mess. Rather than being tall, I was short and despite many hours of training at camp, I'm petite and slender. The biggest difference between us were my eyes: instead of her brown ones, I had my dad's, a strange mixture of blue and green and just as temperamental as the sea. Sometimes, they would appear to be green and other times they would look more blue.

But rather than argue with my uncle since I had literally just met him, I smiled and said, "Really? That's weird. Most people say that I look like my dad."

"Well . . . I wouldn't know, since I've never met your dad," Charlie said, shrugging as we headed over to collect my suitcase. "But there's a little bit of your mom in there, trust me."

Honestly, I didn't know what to think of this, considering the way that she's treated me, but I just nodded as I hoisted my carry-on bag higher onto my shoulder, grabbing my turquoise blue suitcase, which wasn't really that heavy. It didn't have that much stuff in it, just my clothes and books and CDs and stuff. Not a whole lot. I didn't own that much.

I had debated whether or not to bring my archery stuff with me, since I was going to be living with a mortal, but in the end, decided against it. My necklace was one thing: Charlie wouldn't be able to see it, but my archery stuff was another thing entirely. While they could see my archery stuff, my necklace could be hidden in plain sight, except for the very few that have clear sight.

There are a handful of people in the world who possess the ability to see through the Mist, the magical force that shields mortals' eyes from supernatural activity. Generally, that's what attracts the attention of one of the gods. Most of the mortal parents of demigods have clear sight, able to see their partner for what they really are.

Charlie isn't one of those people, though his sister was. Mom was able to see through the Mist and sometimes, she saw things better than I did. But her brother didn't possess clear sight.

Rain was pouring as we packed up my suitcase into the back of Charlie's cop car and began the long drive from Port Angeles to the little town of Forks. Of _course_ it was raining; it's always raining in Forks. It's the wettest part of the continental U.S., so it's only sunny about once a month. At most. But I didn't mind; I'm the daughter of the Sea God, so rain doesn't bother me. On the contrary, I felt perfectly at ease as buckets of water doused around the car.

Charlie didn't talk a whole lot on the way to his house—_our_ house, I mentally corrected myself. It was my home now, too. I was going to be living there now, too. That made it my home.

Anyway, Charlie wasn't a really verbose guy. He talked a little bit, mostly about Forks and that he had enrolled me in the local high school and that he was sure that I would make plenty of friends, but being a divorcee and only visiting his daughter a few times during the summer, he had basically been living alone ever since he and his ex-wife Renee broke up and she fled Forks with my cousin Bella, who was a year my elder. They now live in Phoenix and according to Charlie, Bella hates Forks with a passion, so after years of her putting up a fuss whenever she had to come here for the summer holidays, he finally gave in and whenever he wants to see her, he has to go visit her, thus ensuring that no one else lives in the house. So after living alone for so many years, I guess it's no wonder that he didn't talk a whole lot. That and guys don't gabber on the way that girls do. I've noticed that being around Percy and Briar. They don't talk nearly as much as Valentine did.

I'm the exception, I guess. I don't really talk a whole lot, preferring to keep my nose in a book and I generally keep my guard up whenever I meet people and it's only after I know them after awhile that I let them in. And even then, I don't talk that much.

Charlie did have a surprise, though; he bought this old Chevy off of his friend Billy Black from the reservation for me to drive around in, since he guessed that I wouldn't want to be chauffeured around in a cop car. I was surprised by the gesture, but not displeased. I had been planning on buying my own car, getting a job here and saving up, but I wasn't sure about a truck. After all, I had just gotten my license a few weeks ago and didn't really know how to drive a stick yet.

When I expressed that particular concern, Charlie promised to show me how to work it. Also, Billy's son Jacob had fixed up the truck, so it ran really great, and he could probably show me how to drive a stick, if I preferred.

Forks was beautiful, I thought as we began to enter the small little town. It was always amazing to me that people could live spread out like this, but then again, I'm from New York. I've only been outside of it when I've been on quests and it's always amazing to me how different it is from Manhattan. Beautiful, green, and mossy.

The house that Charlie pulled up to was a small and quiet with two bedrooms and only one bathroom. My cousin's former bedroom was going to be my new bedroom and I took a peek inside of it as I climbed up the stairs, pushing open the door.

It was small, but nice and had a homey feel to it. The bedspread was green and the sheets the same pale blue as the walls. There was a pretty good bookstand that would fill all of the books that I had brought with me and then some, plus all of my CDs. The desk would be perfect for homework and letters back home and stuff.

"I cleaned out all of the stuff that you had in here. Your teacher Mr. Brunner said that you liked blue and green, so the saleslady helped me pick out some stuff in those colours," Charlie explained. Mr. Brunner is Chiron's pseudonym, the name he uses when he poses as a teacher or something. "But if you don't like them, then you can always exchange them."

"No, they're cool," I said, smiling as I set my backpack down on it, feeling the smooth feel of the new comforter. "Thanks."

"Sure," Charlie said, nodding. "Um . . . I was gonna order some pizza tonight, what kind do you like?"

"Um . . . cheese," I said, shrugging.

"All right, that's easy. So . . . I'll leave you to get settled in and uh . . . Susan?" he added. I looked at him. "Welcome home."

"Thanks," I said softly. He headed out the door, closing it behind me and leaving me alone. I sighed, sitting down next to my backpack on the bed, falling backwards onto it. That was nice; at least Charlie didn't hover. That would have been annoying.

But this wasn't so bad, I thought, sitting up on one elbow to look around at the room again. Granted, it was a lot smaller than I was used to, but I usually had a whole cabin to myself, save for the summer holidays when Percy came to camp, so maybe it was only small to me. Still, it was nice and had a warm feeling to it and Forks was pretty. It was nice to be somewhere outside of a big city.

Maybe it would take a little bit time adjusting, but somehow, it was all going to work out. It had to. I knew that I had to get away from camp to heal from the war. I'd made the right choice—well, not really a choice since my brother and best had practically forced me to come here—I needed to get away, to allow myself to recover.

And who knows? Maybe I would actually be able to get some normalcy in my life for a change. It was doubtful, but it could happen.

In this small town of Forks, population 3,120, under constant clouds pouring rain, maybe I would actually find happiness.

If only I could have known . . . I would find so much more.


	2. First Day

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Two: First Day

Usually the idea of pizza is enough to keep me awake, but the forty-something on the bus finally caught up with me and when Charlie came upstairs to rouse me for dinner, I refused to be woken and he gave up, just letting me sleep. I must've been even more exhausted than I thought, because I slept straight through, waking up early the next morning, just in time to get up for my first day at Forks High School.

Charlie was amused at how heavy a sleeper I was, but when I was tired enough, I could sleep through World War III. And believe me, spending two days on a bus from New York to Washington with a bunch of guys talking loudly in the seat behind me, refusing to pipe down even at three o'clock in the morning, making it impossible to sleep would make anybody exhausted.

Unfortunately, the next morning, I found out just how terrible a cook my uncle was, because he "attempted" to make pancakes since I hadn't had any dinner the night before. If my own cooking skills were any better, then I would have taken over kitchen duties, but unfortunately, the few times that I've tried to cook, I've ended up either burning the food or leaving it extremely undercooked.

And now that I think about it, Mom's cooking skills were pretty bad, too. Maybe it's actually genetic, I thought as I ate what I could before I headed out the door, to the truck that Charlie had gotten for me.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to work the stick, but I finally managed to get it into drive and pulled out of the driveway, following Charlie's directions and headed towards the school. I had put a few minutes in early, since I knew I was going to have to get my schedule and locker and I didn't want to be late for my first class. Not the best impression.

The school was nothing like my old one back in New York; it was more of a mass of little buildings put together. But it had a nice, homey feel, I thought as I scanned the buildings, searching for the front office, which Charlie had instructed me to go to, and found it immediately.

Pulling into a space right next to it, I headed into the building, which had only a single occupant, a smiling redheaded lady.

"Hello," she said, turning her smile towards me. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm Susan Dawson," I explained as I moved closer to the desk. "I'm supposed to start here today."

"Of course," the redhead said, still smiling. "Miss Dawson . . . we've been expecting you."

Automatically, my reflexes tensed and my hand moved instinctively towards my shell necklace before I forced my hand to relax, trying to calm my instincts, but they were all in warning mode.

Now, normally, this kind of response would be overreacting somewhat, but after four years in the supernatural world—or whatever you want to call it—I've learned to be on my guard at all times. And usually, the phrase "we've been expecting you" is one that monsters tend to use right before they attack.

But the redhead didn't notice my reaction; she was too busy searching through her pile of papers, producing a schedule and locker number and combination, along with a map to the school. I thanked her and quickly fled from the office, glancing over my shoulder just to make sure that she wasn't about to attack me, but she was just looking puzzled, confused at my quick disappearance.

Later, I realised that I had overreacted just a little bit, but really, I knew that I had to keep my guard up. I was a daughter of Poseidon, a child of one of the Big Three. My aroma was stronger than other demigods and generally, it's not safe for us to live outside of camp. If there was a monster within a fifty mile radius, then it was bound to find me here, living in a small town without a single satyr or any kind of protector.

My first class was English, which was both a relief and a terror. I love reading; I'm addicted to it and usually, when I'm not training back home, then I can usually be found reading next to the beach, but being dyslexic, I have a hard time reading English, because it's not my natural language. Being a half-blood, my brain is hard-wired for Ancient Greek and reading anything else is extremely frustrating and causes the words to float off the page. Dyslexia and ADHD, which are my natural battle reflexes, are the signs of a half-blood. On their own, they don't generally mean anything, but when put together, it's almost a sure sign that someone is a demigod. I have to work extra hard to actually understand what I'm reading.

And unfortunately, I couldn't skip out on any of the books that we were supposed to read, because most of them were ones that I'd never read before. Well, I'd read the Shakespeare plays, because they're fascinating to me. (Probably has something to do with the characters having just as messed up lives as I did.) But everything else, I'd never gotten around to reading.

I swiped a seat in the back of the class, hoping that this would avoid getting me attention, but people still were turning around in their seats, trying to get a good look at me. One guy in particular—Mike Newton, I think Mr. Mason called him—was eyeing me in extreme interest and I shifted uncomfortably at all of the attention.

When class finally ended, Mike attempted to block my path so he could introduce himself and escort me to my next class, but I was quicker than he was, so I was already halfway out the door before he could get to me.

Look, I'm not really shy. I'm quiet and . . . okay, maybe I am shy. I'm not particularly a people-person, especially when those people are all looking at me in that ogling fashion, like more than half of the guys in this school were, as though I were some prize to be won. And I _extremely_ hate it when the girls look at me coldly, like I'm about to steal their men away from them, which most of them were doing. Only a few of them gave me a friendly smile, not at all hateful or cold.

But none of the friendly ones seemed to be in any of my classes, which is probably why I ended up sitting in the back of all the classes, working quietly and trying desperately to ignore the looks that people were giving me.

It wasn't until my fourth class, art, that I actually met somebody who was friendly enough to talk to me. Her name was Angela Weber and she was nice and friendly, chatting with me easily, but not over-abundantly, asking a series of questions and wanting to know every little thing about me. She was actually somebody that I could see myself being friends with.

She actually kind of reminded me of Aria. You know, when she and I were actually talking.

I was actually a little bit relieved when Angela invited me to eat lunch with her and her friends. Lunch was something that I had been a little bit worried about, since I was the new girl. Unfortunately, when I got to Angela's table, my relief soon turned to horror when I discovered that amongst her friends was Mike Newton, the guy who had been attempting to put himself in my path all day, and this girl named Jessica Stanley, whom I had in a couple classes and while she seemed friendly enough, I got the feeling that the only reason why she was being nice to me was so she could be the centre of attention. Since I was the new girl at school, I was going to the news around here for awhile, something that I was _not_ looking forward to.

But since I had nowhere else to sit—the rest of the tables were all full—I reluctantly sat down at Angela's table, nibbling at the food that I had bought—and trying not to grimace at the taste of it—politely talked with her friends, which besides Mike and Jessica, also included a girl named Lauren, her boyfriend Tyler, and this guy named Eric.

Mike insisted on firing question after question at me, wanting to know every little thing about me, and after about a hundred or so question, I thought that he had to be some kind of monster. That was the only conclusion for him being so freaking annoying.

But rather than voice these particular thoughts aloud, I just answered them as best I could, but Mike was getting annoyed with the one-syllable answers that I was giving him.

"So tell us something about yourself," he said invitingly, looking towards me expectantly as I worked my fork around what I think was supposed to be macaroni.

Jessica was throwing me a jealous look at the amount of attention that Mike was giving me, one that I immediately recognised. I may not have had a boyfriend yet, but that didn't mean that I was completely incompetent when it came to love. I mean, my best friend was a daughter of Aphrodite, after all. And Valentine used to give the girls that were looking the wrong look at her boyfriend Leo the same look that Jessica was giving me. Mike might be unaware of it, but Jessica definitely had strong feelings for him and she hated the fact that he was paying me more attention than her.

"I don't know," I said, finally giving up on digesting any more food, making a mental note just to bring my lunch from now on, because there was no way that I was going to survive on this stuff for the rest of the year. I may not be a good cook, but I can do sandwiches. That's not hard. "I'm part Greek," I said, my mouth twitching at the inside joke.

"And part what?" Lauren said snottily. I ignored her tone, not at all bothered by her unfriendliness. It wouldn't be the first time that I had to deal with it today.

"American, of course," I replied, forcing a smile on my face as I turned my gaze towards her. She just looked at me coolly before turning back to Jessica, turning the conversation as far away from me as possible, which I was actually eternally grateful for.

The conversation turned towards something unimportant—actually, I have no idea what they were talking about, because at the moment that Lauren and Jessica started talking, with the boys chiming their opinion in, something caught my attention.

There are some moments in time that completely shape the course of our destinies. They can range from anything and everything. They can be enormous moments, when something huge and unexplainable occurs. Or they can be slight, subtle moments, like when you see someone for the first time. And in my case, it was five people, two girls and three boys.

They were sitting at a table near the windows, farther away from the other students, as though they didn't want to get too close to them. All of them had extraordinary, luminously pale skin, as pale as the moon, and had dark eyes with circles underneath them, as though they hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in a long time.

One of the girls was one of the most beautiful girls that I'd ever seen and believe me, once you've gotten a good look at the daughters of Aphrodite, that's saying something. Briefly, I thought she might be one of Aphrodite's daughters. There are some that don't even know that they're demigods, if they're not powerful forces. It's rare, but it happens. Her luxurious blonde hair fell past her shoulders and halfway down her back, silky and wavy. She was tall and exquisite and she held herself with poise and an air of confidence, in a way that I would've expected from a high-society blue blood, but not from a high school student in Washington.

The big guy sitting next to her I assumed was her boyfriend, due to the closeness between them. He was one of the biggest guys that I'd ever seen, with enormous muscles that would've made Ares' kids jealous, looking like it would be no problem for him to pick up a car and rip it apart with his bare hands. Unlike his girlfriend, he had dark, curly hair.

Sitting next to the guy was another couple. The guy was tall with blonde hair and he looked extremely uncomfortable, as though he were restless and unsettled with the mass of students crowded around him. Still, there was something about him that reminded me of a soldier and he was definitely no stranger to battle, I noted as I caught sight of the faint scars painted on his skin. I could see them, even across the room.

His girlfriend was short and pixie-like, instantly reminding me of a nymph or a dryad, looking as though she could take flight at any given moment. Her dark hair was short and it stuck out in every direction. And there was a playfulness about her, almost childlike, but at the same time, there was a wise, knowing look in her eyes, as though she had seen a lot more than most people.

My gaze turned towards the fifth, the youngest of them, and I literally felt my heart stop in my chest as I saw _him_ for the first time.

He was tall and lanky, just as pale as the others, but other than the similarity in their skin tones and the same dark, tired-looking eyes, they didn't look that much alike. The last boy was . . . well, younger than the others and he actually looked like he might be in high school while the others appeared to be older, almost college-aged. His untidy bronze hair was fixed in an artistic mess and there was a thoughtful, almost brooding look to him. But there was something about him that just drew me to him, like a moth to a flame.

As though he felt my gaze, the bronze boy lifted his dark eyes from his tray, which I noted through my dazed and muddled mind was completely empty, and turned them towards me, his dark gaze colliding with my blue-green ones. My throat felt dry as we stared at each other across the crowded room and it wasn't until one of the girls asked him something that he broke his attention from me, looking back towards her and answering the question.

"Susan? Hello?"

Distracted, I pulled my gaze away from the extremely handsome boy, a blush rising to my cheeks as I thought that, looking back towards Mike, who apparently had asked me a question. "Uh . . . sorry, I was distracted," I muttered, looking down. "What did you say?"

"What were you looking at?" Mike asked, arching his neck to see what—or rather who—I was paying attention to, but Jessica beat me to the punch.

"The Cullens," she said, smirking.

"Who are they?" I asked, curious despite myself, my eyes flickering back towards the bronze-haired again, but he wasn't looking at me any longer.

"They're Dr. and Mrs. Cullen's foster kids," Jessica said matter-of-factly. She spoke as though she expected me to know who these people were, but being the new girl, I didn't have a clue as to who she could mean.

Thankfully, though, Angela took pity on me and explained, "The Cullens moved down here a few years ago. Dr. Cullen works down at the hospital, but they, uh . . . kind of keep to themselves."

"Yeah, because they're all _together_," Jessica put in, emphasising the word more than necessary, as though she didn't expect me to understand what it meant. As though I were dumb rather than dyslexic. "As in _together_, together."

"So?" I said, though this was probably the wrong thing to say. "What's wrong with that? You said that they're foster kids, right? So it's not like they're actually related."

I knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say, because the looks I got were everything between revulsion, disgust, and disbelief. Angela, bless her, was the only one who wasn't staring at me as though I had suddenly grown three heads.

"Are you _kidding _me?" Lauren said in disgust. "They live together and everything."

"Yeah, it's weird," Jessica said, shuddering slightly and giving me an appalled look. But then, she continued on as though I hadn't said a word. "Okay, the blonde girl? That's Rosalie and she's with the big dark-haired guy Emmett. And the little dark-haired girl's Alice and she's with Jasper, the blonde one who looks like he's in pain."

"Hmm." I pierced my lips together, glancing back at them again, once again struck by the strangeness of them, the way that they stood out amongst the mass of students.

They just sat there, talking amongst themselves, their untouched food sitting in front of them, not at all threatening, but there was still something about them that made me reach towards my shell necklace, just to reassure myself that it was still there, ready to whip it out the moment that I might need it. I couldn't explain it, but despite them not appearing to be dangerous, I still felt like there was something . . . otherworldly about them.

The bronze-haired boy's gaze lifted up once again and darted back across towards me and I fought the urge to blush as his dark gaze collided with my blue-green one. I looked down, glancing back towards Jessica, who seemed to enjoying my distraction, because it kept me away from Mike.

"And . . . who's that?" I asked, inclining my head towards the bronze-haired boy, who was looking at me with a frustrated expression, as though he were trying to figure something out.

"That's Edward Cullen," Jessica said matter-of-factly. "Totally gorgeous, obviously, but don't even bother to waste your time. Every girl around here has asked him out at least twice and he's turned all of them down. Apparently, nobody around here is good enough for him." She sniffed disdainfully and I fought down a smile; clearly, she'd been on the list on the girls that he'd rejected. "So don't get your hopes up. He doesn't date."

"I wasn't planning on it," I protested. Jessica just shrugged, obviously not believing my claim, before she turned the conversation away from the Cullens. I paid attention as best I could, but my attention kept getting drawn towards Edward Cullen.

His gaze was still fixed upon me, his dark gaze filled with an intensity that I had never felt before, watching me with that same slightly frustrated look, mixed with confusion. It was almost as though he couldn't quite figure something out. Occasionally, one of his siblings would say something to him, but while he answered them, his attention was fixed solely on me.

I couldn't honestly say how I felt about the intense look that he was giving me, because there was something about the Cullens that made me uneasy . . . almost anxious.

But there was another part, a stronger part, that was thrilled that Edward was paying as much attention to me as he was. Even though I had never spoken to him, even though I had only glimpsed him across a crowded cafeteria, there was something about him that drew me to him just as surely as a moth is drawn to a flame. Only time would tell if I would be burned because of it, though.

All throughout lunch, even when the bell rang and I followed Angela to drop off my tray by the trashcans, joining the mass of students and heading towards math, I felt Edward's gaze fixed upon me the entire time.

Math class passed way too slowly for my taste and it didn't help that I was horrible at it. Fifty minutes in there felt like fifty hours and by the time that it was over, I had already decided that it was just some torture that the gods created just so they could amuse themselves at our agony.

Of course, it probably didn't help that I couldn't get Edward out of my head the entire time. There was just something about the way that he was watching me that . . . I don't know. It made me feel uneasy, almost anxious and yet at the same time, it was completely enthralling. Even to myself, I couldn't explain why I couldn't get him out of my head, why I wanted so desperately to see him again, talk to him.

_There's a word for the way that you're feeling,_ a little voice inside my head that sounded oddly like Valentine said knowingly. _It's called—_

_Shut up,_ I thought in annoyance.

After math, I proceeded to science. This had to be some kind of sick, cruel joke, to have both of the classes that I am so completely and utterly horrible at back to back. It was either one of those not so funny jokes or somebody was having a laugh at my expense.

At least, that's what I was thinking until I stepped into science and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Edward Cullen sitting near the back. As I stepped into the room, his eyes darted straight to me and his expression slipped back into that frustrated one he'd been wearing during lunch.

My legs were locked in position, unable to move as my gaze stared straight into his and by the time that I was able to move, I discovered that all of the seats had been taken and the only one left was next to Edward.

Shyly and unsteady, I walked to the back, slipping into the empty seat, well aware of the fact that every single person was watching my every step. Uncomfortable at all of the attention, I ducked my head, allowing my dark brown hair to fall forward into my face, thus hiding the evidence of my red face, and stared determinedly at the front of the room.

It felt like forever until Mr. Molina called the attention to the front of the class, directing everyone's attention towards the lesson.

I glanced edgily towards him as Mr. Molina started the lesson, only to find that his black eyes were still fixed upon me, watching me in that confused, frustrated way, as though he couldn't quite figure something out.

For one brief second, I thought that maybe he was a monster in disguise—after all, that _would_ explain the ethereal feeling that I was getting from him—but there was no menace in his eyes, no coldness, no evil feeling from him.

Whoever Edward Cullen was . . . whatever he might be . . . he wasn't a bad person. That was the only thing that I was sure of.

Forcing myself to look ahead towards Mr. Molina, I tried all hour to pay attention to the lesson as Mr. Molina started us out in the basic biology, handing out textbooks and beginning on the first chapter.

I honestly _did_ try to pay attention. Really, I did! But I could feel Edward looking at me all through class, even though when Mr. Molina—who had apparently noticed that he seemed distracted—asked him a question, he was able to answer it easily, with no amount of uncertainty in his voice.

The moment that he spoke, when I heard his voice for the first time, I felt my heart stop in my chest. It was the most beautiful sound that I'd heard in my sixteen years. It was velvety smooth and gently, but carried a slight accent to it. Most people wouldn't notice it, but I've been around immortal beings for four years and even though it's not as obvious, there's a slight accent in their voices, from living in different eras. Edward had the same lilt to his voice, as though he had been born in a different time and raised in a completely different era. And I wondered if my original feelings had been right and Edward wasn't human after all.

Whereas math had dragged by as though every moment felt like an hour had passed instead, science seemed to be over much too quickly—which was a first for me, considering how much I detest the subject—and the class quickly dispersed. The second that the bell rang, Edward disappeared from his seat, bolting from the room like hellhounds were nipping at his feet, and vanished around the corner before I had even risen from my chair.

I stared after him, wondering if I had only _thought_ that he had left faster than he did and confused by his abrupt departure. But in his haste to leave the classroom, he had left his bag sitting forgotten next to his seat.

Hesitating for a second—after all, it wasn't mine to take—I picked up the bag, hoping to catch up with him so I could return it to him before he vanished from campus, but by the time that I got outside, he was nowhere to be seen, though his siblings were getting into a silver Volvo. The blonde girl Rosalie looked extremely disgruntled about something and her expression soured when she saw me heading their way, but the dark-haired girl Alice smiled at me as I approached the vehicle.

"Hi," I said uneasily, well aware of the looks that I was getting, both from the other three Cullens and the rest of the students, who were either heading to their cars, waiting for rides, or waiting for their friends, but Alice just gave me a friendly look, not at all bothered by the strange looks we were getting. "You're Alice Cullen, right?" She nodded. "Your brother forgot his bag in science," I explained, holding Edward's backpack out to her. "I thought I should probably get it to him, but I couldn't find him."

"Oh, he just had something that he had to do," Alice said brightly. "He was in a hurry, so he probably just forgot about it. Thanks for getting it, though. That was nice of you."

"Sure, it was no problem," I said, shrugging. "I should get going. I've got lots of homework."

Alice nodded, still smiling at me in a very strange way. "Susan," she said as I was about to walk away. I turned back towards her and she gave me a dazzling smile. "You're welcome at our house any time, in case you ever need someone to talk to."

The way that she said that puzzled me. She spoke as though we were already friends and not just two acquaintances that had just spoken five seconds ago, but despite my puzzlement, I nodded.

"Um . . . thanks," I said, staring at her. "Thank you, but I'm fine."

"Everybody needs a friend," Alice said, shrugging. "But don't forget; if you ever need anybody to talk to you, you can always come over to our house. Don't even worry about calling; just come over."

I was suddenly struck at the familiarity of the way she looked at me, reminded violently of Rachel, the new Oracle at camp. Her eyes were filled with such knowledge, greater than I could understand.

"Okay . . . thanks," I said, though thoroughly bemused as I walked back to my truck, glancing back at the Cullens as I opened the door. Rosalie was saying something to Alice. I've never been good at lip-reading, so I had no idea what they were talking about, but she looked extremely angry about something. Alice didn't seem to be bothered, though, just said something in reply that Rosalie didn't particularly like.

Whatever they were talking about, I got the feeling that it involved me, because Rosalie glowered at me from across the parking lot.

Not understanding what had just happened, I tossed my backpack into the seat next to me, climbing inside.

As far as first days were, today hadn't been so bad, I decided as I turned on the ignition, managing to get the truck into drive and navigated my way out of the lot, heading towards my house. It could have been a lot worse. I mean, so far, it didn't appear that any of my teachers were monsters.

I went home and did my homework and attempted to cook something edible for dinner—pasta, _nobody_ can mess that up—watched some of the baseball game with Charlie and when I got bored enough, I went upstairs and read for a little bit before I went to bed.

But my thoughts never strayed from Edward Cullen.


	3. Edward Cullen

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Three: Edward Cullen

Alice's words hung over me throughout the night and straight through to the next day. I didn't understand what she could have meant, but it was almost as though she _knew_ something about me, almost as though she could see who and what I was just by looking at me. It was as though she knew everything that I had been through, knew everything that had happened to me, but how could she? I argued with myself, trying to throw out those particular thoughts. How could she know what happened back in New York? How would she even know the truth about who and what I was?

Trying not to mull over this as I headed to school, I pulled my truck, managing not to hit anything—give me a break, I'm still getting used to driving a stick, not to mention, I only got my license a month ago—and headed inside as rain poured down around me, which meant that my dad was keeping an eye on me.

Scowling up at the sky, raindrops pattering on my forehead, I muttered darkly, "I _can_ take care of myself, Dad."

If my father was listening, then his only response was the rain coming down even harder than before. Making a face, I trudged into the building, shaking the droplets of rain out of my hair as I headed towards my locker to collect the books that I was going to need for my first few classes.

The second day wasn't as nearly as bad as the first. At least I knew where all my classes were and didn't get lost on my way there. Okay, so I got lost once, but given that it was only my second day, so I think I get credit for only getting lost once today. Angela, who was in my art and history classes, was nice enough to offer to help me with history, which I'm slightly better in than science and math, but it's still not one of my better subjects. It probably has something to do with the fact that I could tell you more about the hidden mysteries of historical figures than I could about the things that they're actually famous for. I'll give you a hint: most of the people that are in history books are actually demigod children.

When I got to lunch, the Cullens were sitting at the same table that they had occupied yesterday, sitting in the exact same chairs, and talking amongst themselves as I sat down with Angela and her group, but as I glanced over at them, something seem . . . different about them.

Edward seemed to catch my gaze and his eyes flickered over to me automatically, but there was something different about his gaze today. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but they didn't seem quite so dark as they had yesterday.

Frowning slightly, I tried to sort through my thoughts, but came up with nothing and turned my attention back to Jessica as she asked me a question. I answered her, trying to keep my concentration on the topic and not on the beautiful boy sitting on the other side of the cafeteria.

If it were possible, math passed by even more slowly than it had the day before, but maybe that was because I was glancing at the clock every five minutes, waiting for it to end so I could get to science. Never, in my entire life, had I been so eager to get to science.

But then again, I'd never had somebody that I'd been so desperate to talk to before. Stefan came close, but I didn't count him anymore, since he had turned his back on us. And anyway, it wasn't the same. I didn't have the same, intense feelings for Stefan that I did for Edward. I couldn't describe what it was, exactly, but whatever my feelings were for him, they were strong.

Edward was sitting in his usual spot the second that I stepped into science and I was once again struck by the difference between yesterday and today, even if I couldn't put my finger on it. I wandered over to my seat, slipping into it and glancing sideways at him. His golden eyes flashed in my direction as I did so.

Wait, golden?

I did a double-take and realised that my first impression had indeed been correct. Instead of the dark gaze that I so vividly remembered from yesterday, his eyes were a deep gold colour, almost the same shade as butterscotch. But how could that be? I thought in bewilderment. How could he eyes so vividly change in the space of a day?

Confused beyond doubt, I pulled my attention away from Edward, focusing instead on the lesson. Or at least, that was my intention before a voice suddenly spoke next to me.

"Hello."

Startled, I looked up from pulling my notebook out of my backpack, realising two things immediately. The first thing was that Edward was looking directly at me, his gaze friendly and the second, that it was him who had spoken to me.

"I'm sorry that I didn't introduce myself yesterday," he said courteously, still smiling at me. "I'm Edward Cullen. You're Susan Dawson, from New York?" I nodded, too stunned to speak. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I apologise for yesterday; I know that I was being a bit rude. I wasn't feeling very well," he said apologetically.

"It's okay," I heard myself say and I was relieved to find that my voice was completely steady, without a hint of agitation to it. "It's very nice to meet you too." I noticed that now that he was speaking to me directly, my first impression of his accent hadn't been exaggerated. Edward carried the same lilt to his voice that Chiron, the activities director at camp, possessed. It was odd and formal.

Edward smiled crookedly at me and I felt myself melting underneath that smile; I'm a sucker for guys with great smiles, I'll admit it, but I doubt that any girl would be able to resist that smile of his, if they had eyes. If they didn't, then they didn't know what they were missing. I blushed at that particular thought, wishing that I wasn't so obvious whenever I said or thought something that was particularly embarrassing.

But I always did blush easily. Valentine used to tease me, telling me that all she had to do was look at me and I would turn about fifty different shades of red. And she wasn't wrong; I hated being the centre of attention, which was probably why I blushed so much. But with Edward Cullen looking directly at me with that amazing smile of his, with absolutely no sign of abhorrence in his golden eyes, I couldn't help but go red in the face.

Just by him looking at me in that friendly way, not in that frustrated way that he had been yesterday that had been bordering on hatred, it was enough to make everything unravel itself in my head.

I forgot that anybody else was there. I forgot that I was in a public high school. I forgot that Edward was most definitely _not_ completely, 100% human. I forgot that I was a demigod. I forgot my own name. I forgot _everything_ as our eyes clashed onto one another. For a moment that contained an eternity, the only thing that I was aware of was Edward Cullen. That moment seemed to last an eternity, as though we were the only two people in existence, as though the lights had dimmed everywhere else.

How long I sat there, just staring at Edward, his golden eyes completely focused on my blue-green ones, I have no idea, but eventually, I became aware of Mr. Molina conducting the lesson and I forced my head towards the front of the classroom, trying to focus on the lesson, which was very near impossible to do with Edward sitting next to me.

_Focus, Susan,_ I told myself sternly. _Focus on the teacher and what he's talking about, not this incredibly handsome boy sitting right next to you . . ._

Of course, this didn't work too well, because as soon as I tried to focus on what Mr. Molina was teaching, he started passing out slides for us to look under the microscope and identify. I inwardly groaned; this exercise was bound to prove just how much of an idiot at science I really was.

Edward was smiling slightly, as though he knew exactly what I was thinking, but he simply placed the first slide on the microscope and gestured for me to take a look.

"Ladies first," he said invitingly, courteous and encouraging.

I sighed, but pulled the microscope towards me. "Fine," I grumbled. "But I'm warning you, I suck at science."

He laughed merrily, causing a few people to look over at us, apparently not used to Edward Cullen being so sociable. "I'm sure that you're not as bad as you think you are," he assured me. I frowned at him, eyebrows raised. "Besides, I'm a good tutor. How about if you identify each of the slides and I'll check your answers?"

I sighed. "Fine," I muttered. "But I'm warning you, I'm probably going to make you fail." Edward laughed quietly, gesturing his hand towards the microscope and I peered into the eyepiece, trying to determine which slide it was supposed to be.

"Prophase?" It sounded like a guess, even to me, so I was hardly surprise when Edward gave me a kind smile.

"It doesn't sound like you're sure."

Biting my lip, I peered back into the eyepiece, staring at it again before pulling away again. "I'm sure," I told him.

Edward pulled the slide towards him to check my answer and when he pulled away, he gave me a grin. "Prophase," he agreed, nodding. "See? You're not as bad as you think you are."

"Or maybe you're just a good teacher," I corrected, smiling. It was nice and easier to talk to him than I would have thought, almost completely comfortable. Granted, I don't have that much experience in talking to guys, but I would have thought that I would have experience some difficulty with coherency, but other than the fact that I was blushing more than I would have liked, I was doing just fine.

Or at least, _I_ thought so.

With a smile, Edward slid the next slide into place and pushed the microscope towards me again.

"So . . . your sister said that you had something to do yesterday?" I said, trying to make my inquiry sound casual, but even I could hear the curiosity behind the question. But he seemed to be a master of acting, because his response sounded practiced and well-delivered.

"Yes. I had something that I had to talk about with my father," Edward said offhandedly. "It was nothing serious, but I needed to talk to him. But thank you for bringing my backpack," he added with a smile. "My sister told me that you tracked her down. That was very considerate of you."

"It was nothing," I said, looking down. "Anybody else would have done the same thing."

"On the contrary, I think you're wrong about that," Edward told me. I paused; he was probably right about that. Most people probably would have pawed through it and gone through a person's person belongings before they turned it over to the office and that was even a stretch. "Not many would have bothered."

"Well . . . I'm not an average girl," I said at last.

Edward nodded as though this particular piece of information did not surprise him much. "No," he murmured, more to himself than to me, "you're not, are you?"

Something about the way that he said that made me look at him suspiciously, but his expression was calm and composed.

Frowning slightly, I subtly checked to make sure that my necklace was where it was supposed to be, just in case, before I moved on to the next slide.

Maybe I was overreacting a little bit, but it had literally been four years since I had been in the outside world for something other than quests. Living in the demigod world for so long . . . well, maybe it wasn't too surprising that I was seeing monsters everywhere that I looked. Maybe I was just making a big deal out of something that could be nothing at all. After all, maybe my imagination was just playing tricks on me. Edward and his siblings could very well be average mortals who were just blessed by Aphrodite.

Or at least, that's what I was trying to convince myself.

We continued on the assignment this way, with me identifying the slides—or at least trying to—and Edward checking my responses. All in all, I didn't do that badly. I only got two of them wrong and I got them right on my second try. In the end, we were the first ones finished and after we turned in our assignment, we sat at our desks and talked quietly so as not to disturb anybody else.

To be honest, I figured that Edward would be getting sick of me by now, but on the contrary, he seemed to be genuinely interested in what I had to say and perfectly content to sit next to me and talk to me. What I found most shocking was that he seemed interested in _me_.

"So . . . how are you liking the rain?" he asked me, inclining his head towards the window, where the rain was pattering against the pane, making little chimes with every touch and blanketing the entire town with its wetness.

The question surprised me some much that I spoke without even thinking of my answer. "I like it. It might sound a little bit strange, but I love the rain. The smell right after a big rainstorm, the way that it sounds against when it hits the roof . . . back home, it never rained." I wasn't kidding; bad weather never entered the camp unless the gods allowed it to, though it did snow in winter, turning the camp into a frosty wonderland.

But Edward looked confused. "Forgive me, but didn't you live in New York?" he sought to clarify. I nodded, immediately recognising my mistake and my mind frantically searched for an answer that wouldn't sound like a lie. "I wasn't aware that it was a particularly dry state."

"It's not," I said, wishing that I hadn't said anything, but it was too late now. All I could do was salvage the situation. "But it just never seemed to rain in the part that I lived at."

That wasn't a lie and it was enough of the truth that Edward seemed to accept it, which I was grateful for. I hate lying to people and I especially hated lying to an extremely handsome boy that I couldn't help but feel drawn to, despite my uneasy feelings about him.

But Edward seemed to be satisfied by this, because he didn't press the subject, just nodded in acceptance. "So then you must be happy, living in the wettest part of the continental U.S.," he observed.

"Yeah . . . I wasn't sure about coming here, at first, but . . ." I hesitated, glancing at him slightly. "But I'm starting to warm up to it."

I realised with a jolt just how true that statement was. When I came out here—okay, forced out here by my annoying big brother and best friend—I figured that I would stay a semester, a year at the most before going back to camp and resuming my life there when I was stable enough to go back home. It never occurred to me that I might actually like it here.

But now that I was here, I was starting to realise that living with my mortal uncle and having mortal friends and going to a mortal school wasn't so bad. And it wasn't as dangerous as I thought it would be. Given, I'd only been here a day, but nothing unusual had happened, no monsters had attacked.

The only thing out of the ordinary that had happened was meeting Edward and the rest of the Cullens and while they definitely seemed otherworldly, they didn't have that "I want to kill you" vibe. Well, maybe Rosalie, but not Edward and the rest of them.

Supernatural feeling, yes, but killers, no.

"Actually, it's pretty nice here," I admitted, folding my fingers on top of one another. "I'm starting to think that I might actually like it here." It was beautiful here and besides that, there was something holding me here. There was no way that I could leave here, not without knowing Edward Cullen.

I missed camp. I missed sitting by the beach and reading, I missed the sing-alongs, I missed Capture the Flag, I missed sword-duelling, I missed archery, I missed Briar and Percy, I missed riding the Pegasus.

Basically, I just missed camp.

But I also couldn't leave here. As much as I missed camp . . . I couldn't leave without ever having known him.

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you move in with your uncle?" Edward inquired curiously. "You were living with your mother, weren't you?"

"Um . . . sort of," I said uncomfortably as the subject of my mother rose. This was the first time that my mother had come up, other than Charlie's inspection of me at the bus station and I was surprised to find that my mother's rejection still left an imprint on me. "I was actually at this . . . boarding school and . . . well, it's kind of complicated."

Part of me didn't want to talk about it while another part wanted to tell him everything that had happened.

All he did was smile at me. "I'm sure that I can keep up."

For a moment, I hesitated, but Edward flashed me that same crooked smile, one that I found myself unable to resist for some reason. "Well . . . last year, one of my best friends died," I whispered, memories flashing through my mind as I spoke. "Valentine and a few of my other friends were . . . _murdered_ right in front of me." I had to force out the word. "And it completely traumatised me. I tried to keep it together, tried to keep going, for my brother's sake and for the friends that had survived, but eventually . . . it just got to be too much. The memories of everyone that I had lost were too overwhelming. I needed to get away, so one of my teachers tracked down Charlie and I came to live with him for awhile. And . . . here I am."

"Here you are," Edward murmured, looking sympathetic. "I'm so sorry, about your friends. That's a terrible loss to go through."

"Thank you." I remembered suddenly that he was a foster child, not living with his birth parents, so maybe he understood what it was like to lose somebody. "You've known someone who's died, then?"

Edward nodded, a bit reluctantly. "Yes, my parents," he answered. "They died . . . many years ago. I don't remember them all that much; the memories are fuzzy. But that doesn't mean that I don't miss them. It might be hard to believe, Susan, but time really does heal all wounds," he told me gently, trying to comfort me, I think.

"Perhaps," I acknowledged, "or maybe there are just some wounds that are too deeply etched within your very soul to heal. Maybe sometimes time _can't_ heal all wounds. Maybe you just get better at hiding it."

"Or maybe," Edward said thoughtfully, "you find something in life that is worth living for."

The comment caught me off guard and I stared at his golden eyes, trying to figure out what he'd meant by that, searching for some hidden meaning behind his words, but I couldn't come up with anything, so I swiftly changed the subject.

"So . . . did you get contacts?"

"No," he replied, a bit too quickly for my taste and I thought I glimpsed a hint of apprehension in his eyes.

"That's weird," I muttered, frowning. "I could have sworn that your eyes were . . . black yesterday." I remembered it so vividly; they had stood out against the paleness of his skin. "And now today, they're like . . . gold," I muttered, still frowning. "Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me."

"No, it's the fluorescents," Edward corrected.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't believe his flimsy excuse, but I couldn't come up with anything else—plus, he hadn't pressed the subject of Val's death—so I just let it go. Besides, class was just about over and Edward looked frustrated with himself, so I doubted I would get any more answers out of him, so we just spent the last five minutes in silence.

When the bell rang, I headed out the door, glancing towards Edward as I joined my classmates, before slipping through the crowd towards my locker, collecting the books I would need for homework.

As I stepped out into the parking lot, I thought that I saw someone standing near the football field, a very familiar someone, but when I looked back, there was no one there besides my mortal classmates.

Shaking my head at my imagination, I climbed into my truck and headed for my house, completely unaware of the danger that was headed my way.


	4. A Mysterious Rescue

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Four: A Mysterious Rescue

"So . . . how's the first few days been?" Charlie asked as I was drenching the salad mix with dressing so that it was soaked from top to bottom. Maybe it was too much dressing, but that was the way that I liked it. "Everybody been treating you all right? Have you made any friends?"

"Yeah, a few people," I replied, munching on the salad and swallowing, my thoughts still on what had happened during science class today. "Um . . . Angela Weber's been really great; she's been helping me out with my classes and stuff. She's really nice." I fiddled with my fork before glancing towards my uncle. "And . . . uh . . . Edward Cullen's been helping me out with science, giving me some help."

"Really?" Charlie seemed a little bit surprised by that. "Strange . . . usually, the Cullen kids tend to stick to themselves."

Although I had already witnessed this by the way that people reacted around them, I feigned surprise. "How come? Edward's friendly enough—" Well, once I had gotten him to talk, but one innocent question had gotten him back into his tight, rigid shell. "And the rest of them seemed nice enough."

"Just people in this town tend to be narrow-minded," Charlie said and I detected a hint of annoyance in my uncle's voice, though it was far from directed at me. "Dr. Cullen is a fantastic surgeon, could have gotten a much better job than at our little hospital, but his wife wanted to raise their family in a small town. People around here should be happy about that, but instead, they treat the Cullens like outsiders. And his kids? Those are some of the most mature, well-mannered kids that I've ever seen, not like the troublemakers around here." Charlie shook his head. "Just because they're newcomers, people have to talk. Don't pay attention to what people say, Susan. Those are some of the best people that I've ever met."

"Yeah, Edward seems real nice," I said. "I noticed that they keep to themselves, though. Don't worry, Uncle Charlie, I'm not gonna ignore somebody based on what people say. Besides," I added with a grin, "I'm used to being the freak, even in New York."

"People don't tend to interact with people who are different," Charlie agreed with a mouthful of hamburger. "But good for you; I think that you could use a friend. I hate leaving you alone here," he said apologetically, "but there's some kind of animal out on the loose. It killed a security guard down in Mason County and we've been trying to track it down. Speaking of which, I'm gonna head down there after dinner, see if I can help out. You gonna be all right here by yourself?"

"Uncle Charlie," I said, smiling at him, "you don't have worry about me. I'm okay with staying by myself."

He smiled ruefully. "Yeah, well, I hate leaving you alone too much. I know what my sister can be like and . . . well, I hate to be another parental figure to abandon you."

"Going to do your job and making sure that an animal doesn't hurt anybody else hardly constitutes as abandonment," I replied, grinning. "Go on, I'll be fine. I'm just gonna do my homework and maybe watch a movie."

With a nod, Charlie finished up his dinner before donning his uniform and heading out the door. No sooner had he called, the phone began ringing off the hook. I climbed to my feet and picked up the cordless, placing it against my ear.

"Hello?" I asked, but there was silence on the other end, filled with empty air, without even somebody breathing on the other line. "Hello? Is somebody there?" I said, annoyed. I always got annoyed whenever somebody calls and doesn't say anything; they could at least have the courtesy of just saying that they had the wrong number before hanging up.

Before I could say as much, however, the person on the other end just hung up the phone and I set it back into the hook, shaking my head as I moved back towards the stairs so I could go do my homework, but before I reached the first step, the phone rang again.

Annoyance set in as I retraced my steps and picked up the phone again. "Hello?" I said, more snappish than I meant to due to my irritation.

"Whoa, hey, is that any way to talk to your favourite brother?" Percy Jackson, my older half-brother, said with humour in his voice. Immediately, my annoyance melted away.

"Hey, Perce," I said, moving over to the couch and crossing my legs as I sat down. "Did you just call me?"

"What do you call what we're doing now?"

"No, I mean about a minute ago," I corrected. "Somebody just called me and hung up."

"Nope, wasn't me," Percy assured me. "I just got home, anyway. Annabeth and I were working on a project."

"Mm-hmm, sure. You were _working_," I said, emphasising the word and trying very hard not to laugh. I could practically see my brother rolling his eyes in mild irritation. "Hey, you know that I'm only teasing; I am very happy that you two finally got it through your thick skulls and admitted to each other the way that you feel about one another. Or actually, probably just you, because I think Annabeth is smart enough to figure it out."

"Hey, don't be mean," Percy complained.

"I'm not. It's just a fact that girls are much faster than boys in the romance department," I said, shrugging.

"Okay, moving on," Percy said quickly before I could get on my tirade about how slow boys could be. I chuckled. "So . . . how's life in the rainy part of the U.S.? How's your uncle? He treating you okay?"

"Yeah, Charlie's great. He actually got me a truck, though I'm pretty sure that he got it for free, because he wouldn't tell me how much it cost him," I said. "But it was nice of him, anyway. I mean, I didn't really want to be chauffeured around in a cop car."

"Yeah, we get enough trouble with monsters ruining our reps at school without having the additional problems of being driven to school by a cop," Percy agreed. "But Forks is good?"

"It's great. It's been raining since I got here, but I think that's just because Dad's keeping an eye on me," I said, making a face. "Am I the only one who thinks that I can take care of myself?"

"Yes, because you're bound to find trouble wherever you go."

"Uh . . . I think you mistook me for you, Seaweed Brain," I said, borrowing Annabeth's nickname for him.

"Hey, watch it, Annabeth is the only one who's allowed to call me that," Percy complained, but he didn't sound too upset. "But I'm glad you're okay. You even sound a little bit better than when Briar and I dropped you off at the bus station, which you were supposed to call me and let me know that you had gotten there safely, by the way," he added sternly.

"I'm sorry, I forgot. When I got here, I completely crashed and when I woke up, it was time for school and then . . . well, let's just say that I forgot, all right?" I said.

"You forgot about your favourite brother," Percy said dramatically. "I'm hurt, little sister. I'm wounded. How could you forget about somebody as wonderful as me?"

"Your modesty overwhelms me," I said, shaking my head. "So how is Annabeth? You treating her right?"

"Of course I am," Percy told me. "She's good, still working hard on rebuilding Olympus. It's coming out great. When you come back to New York, you should see it. It's amazing."

"I'm sure it is," I agreed. "Hey, is Annabeth there, by any chance?"

"No, she went back to her dormitory," Percy replied. "Why?"

"No reason," I said quickly. I'd wanted to ask her about the Cullens, since she was better informed about mythology than Percy and I were. "I just wanted to ask her something, that's it. It's not important."

"Okay," Percy said doubtfully. "I'll tell her to call you."

"Thanks."

"Well, I should probably get going; I've got a history report to write. I just wanted to make sure that you got there all right."

"You know, you worry too much, even for a super-protective, extremely annoying older brother," I said. Percy laughed.

"Oh, wow, now I _know_ that you're feeling better," he said, still laughing. "I haven't heard you bantering me in a year. I didn't realise how much I missed hearing it. If you're getting better in just two days, then you should be ready to come home in a couple of weeks."

I paused. "I don't know, Percy," I said quietly, my thoughts drifting back to Edward, my heart fluttering at the mere thought of him. "Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to live here during the school year. Forks is . . . surprisingly interesting."

"Interesting how?" Percy said suspiciously.

A smile tugged across my lips. "I just think that it wouldn't be so bad to have some normalcy in my life. I mean, it works for you."

"Yeah, but what about camp?" Percy asked, still sounding suspicious. "It can't be safe, staying so far away from it."

"With Dad having so much influence here, what could be safer?" I said calmly. "But let's just wait and see how it goes, okay? You've got a history report to write and I've got a couple chapters of English to read, so I'll talk to you later, big brother."

"All right, I'll talk to you later," Percy agreed. "Bye, sis."

"Bye," I said and hung up, heading up to my bedroom and opening up my backpack to get started on my English homework.

But all the while, I couldn't get my mind off Edward or shake the feeling that he wasn't entirely human.

The next few days at school went by surprisingly fast and before I knew it, a whole new week had started. Angela and I were becoming fast friends and she was a really good study partner. I still sat at her table at lunch, though I'm pretty sure that Jessica and Lauren were slowly becoming disgruntled by that particular decision. Lauren because I don't think she liked me from the beginning and would like nothing better than to squash me like a bug and Jessica because once the popularity that came with being the new girl started to die away, then she didn't have any particular reason for being around me.

What fascinated me the most was that the boys seemed to fall themselves at my feet here, something that was somewhat of a novel to me. Of course, when I was at school in New York, I was only twelve and still thought that boys were from another planet. But while the boys treated me with respect and slight admiration, none of the campers acted the way the boys did here.

Mike Newton was at the top of my admirers and I couldn't get away from him fast enough. He's a nice-enough boy and I think he's going to make some girl a wonderful husband someday, but that girl is _definitely_ not going to be me. I just don't seem him that way and no matter how much I try to push him in Jessica's direction—whose irritation at me seems to be growing every time she sees Mike throwing himself at me—he doesn't seem to take the hint. Boys can be _so_ oblivious sometimes.

But the one person that was not among my admirers was the only one that I actually wished would be.

After the friendly conversation on my second day, Edward had remained a slightly cool attitude towards me, always saying hello to me, but he didn't spring questions at me like he had before.

He frustrated me to no end. I wished I knew what was going on inside his head, because I couldn't begin to figure him out. If he was just some mortal that was blessed by Aphrodite, then he was one of the most annoying boys that I'd ever met. And if he was a monster, then why didn't he just attack already? It was better than just waiting around, watching me the way that he did.

I'd even considered that he might be immortal, maybe one of the minor gods, but even that didn't make sense. Immortal, he might be, but in possession of divine powers, I didn't think so.

As Percy had promised me, he told Annabeth to call me and I'd told her about the Cullens and while she did think that I was overreacting, she promised me that she'd look into it.

"Honestly, Susan," she said when I explained, "I think that you've been living at camp too long. Believe me," she sighed, "I know the feeling. After I went to go live with my dad a few years ago, after living at camp for so long, I used to see monsters everywhere I went, too. You're probably just too used to searching for supernatural beings that you're seeing monsters where they're just a normal explanation. But I'll look into it, I promise."

She was probably right. Annabeth usually is. And I even agreed with her, but I also couldn't dismiss the feeling that there was something otherworldly about the Cullens.

And I wasn't wrong.

It was almost two weeks after school had started when I found the first clue that there was something otherworldly about Edward and his family.

Class had ended and I was heading out to the parking lot, with my hood pulled up because it was raining, plus the temperature had dropped several degrees, making the wet pavement slick with ice. A few people were sliding across it as though they were figure skating while others were just falling down on it, laughing at their clumsiness. A couple of the guys were attempting to play basketball and ice skate at the same time, which is a lot funnier to watch than it is to describe. I was trying not to smile as I headed towards my truck, waving goodbye to Angela as she was waiting for Ben Chaney.

Edward was standing next to his car, along with his siblings, his gaze fixed upon me. I thought I detected a hint of longing in them, but the second that I glanced back at him—Rosalie sent me a thunderous look as I did so—his expression had slithered back into impassiveness.

Fishing my keys out of my pocket, I trudged through the ice and slid the key into the lock, clicking it open when I heard a screech of tires coming from somewhere nearby.

I spun around and saw a van heading straight for me. I recognised the driver as Tyler Crawley; I'd seen him a few times around school, but I'd rarely had the chance to talk to him. But what shocked me the most was the look on his face; it was fixed straight upon me and he looked as though he had no intention of stopping. He was heading straight for me and I don't think that it was unintentional.

Every fibre of my being screamed at me to move, screamed at me to leap out of the way, but I had frozen, horror and fear ripping through my veins. As I stared back at Tyler's cold, unyielding eyes, I knew two things: that he was well aware of what he was doing and that I was going to die.

You know how everybody says that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes?

Well, they're all crazy. All I was aware of was that a van was heading straight for me, knowing that it would be the last thing that I ever saw and the only thing that I was capable of doing was sending a silent prayer to my dad, hoping that Hades would be merciful when I took the final trip to the Underworld, relieved that I at least had a drachma in my pocket so I would be able to pay the ferryman, but also dismayed that I would never be able to say goodbye to my brother and how guilty he would feel when he learned what had happened to me . . .

Life is never the way that it is in movies. If it was a movie, then the van would have headed towards me in slow motion, as though every second took an hour to complete. But instead, everything seemed to speed up and the van headed for me much faster than it should have.

Even with my battle reflexes yelling at me to move, I didn't think that I was capable of doing so, but even if I had, I never got a chance to find out. One minute, I was standing next to my truck, staring at the van as it headed towards me and the next, I was lying flat on the pavement and Edward Cullen was right next to me, shielding me with his body.

I wanted to scream at him to get out of the way, wanted to yell at him to move, but there was no time. There was no time to even so much as move as the van headed straight towards us. No time to do anything but realise that we were going to be crushed.

As the van came closer to us, close enough to make contact, Edward threw out his hand to put some resistance between us and the van. I prepared myself for the sound of a bone being crushed, of it being smashed, of it being shoved out of place—believe me, I know what it sounds like—but it never came.

Instead, there was the unmistakable sound of metal being crushed and I slowly lifted my head towards Edward, only to find that his free hand—one was wrapped around my shoulders, protecting me—was stretched out towards the van, which had been pushed away from us. On the side of it, there was an imprint, as though something had been shoved into it, and while there was a scratch on the side of my truck where Tyler had hit it, both Edward and I were perfectly fine.

Stunned by what I was seeing, I turned disbelieving eyes towards Edward, whose expression mirrored one of shock and horror, his face paler than his usual paleness, his golden eyes wide as he stared at me.

And that's when I knew.

That's when I understood that what I had just seen really had happened; it was no trick of the light, my mind wasn't playing tricks on me, the Mist wasn't attempting to conceal something. What I had just witnessed really had just happened.

As quickly as he had come, Edward slowly got to his feet, stepping away from me and as he got up, his fingers brushed against mine for the briefest of seconds and through my dazed and shocked mind, I realised just how cold they were, as cold as the ice I was lying on. He looked down at me for the briefest of seconds before he jumped over my truck, away from the accident scene, and vanished from sight.

The second that he disappeared, the screaming ensued. Everyone within seeing range started running towards the van and everyone who had been close enough to hear the accident came running. People were screaming, yelling to get Tyler out of the van.

As they reached me, they gathered around, practically smothering me as they helped me up, making sure that I wasn't hurt, and trying to comfort me, reassure me that everything was fine, as though I were freaking out, which I wasn't. I was perfectly calm.

Of course, being in a near accident isn't at the top of the most traumatic events that I've ever been through. Let me see . . . getting attacked by a Fury after I ran away, check . . . hellhounds chasing after me as Eli and I were running into Camp Half-blood, check . . . dragons . . . wendigos . . . creatures of every imaginable size and shape that would love to tear your insides out and wear them as a hat . . . triple check. I've killed so many of them that I've lost track. Believe me, a car accident seems almost tame next to everything that I've experienced.

But even though I didn't have a scratch on me, even though I was perfectly fine, someone still insisted on calling 911 and I was forced to be put on a gurney and loaded into an ambulance. Tyler Crawley looked very shaken as he was loaded up too—of course, he had hit his head on the steering wheel and was bleeding profoundly, so he actually needed to go to the hospital—but there was no sign of the coldness that I'd seen in his eyes a moment before.

More than anything else, he seemed confused by the day's events and kept apologising to me over and over again, claiming that he didn't know what had happened.

But I'd seen his face just before he'd almost hit me; he had been perfectly aware of what he as doing and had been focused intently on ramming his van into me.

Now, however, he didn't seem to remember what had happened.

That, however, barely even registered in my mind while I was being loaded into the ambulance against my will, even though I assured both the ambulance drivers and the other students that I was perfectly fine. Instead, my mind just replayed what I had just seen, what I had just witnessed.

It was unbelievable, incredible, even far-fetched, but somehow, Edward had pushed a two-ton van away from us with his own hands as though it were nothing and he didn't even have a mark to show for it.

That on its own would have been enough, but he had also gotten over to me in the space of about two seconds, three at the most. I had seen him; he was right next to his car with his brothers and sisters, on the other side of the parking lot. Even the fastest demigod in the world wouldn't have been able to get to me in time.

And if he were a god, then he wouldn't have had to run over to me; he would've just snapped his fingers and zapped me to safety without attracting the notice of any mortals.

So if he wasn't a god and he wasn't a demigod, then what was he? As far as I was concerned, the events of the afternoon had only confirmed the suspicion that was already settled in my head: Edward Cullen was most definitely _not_ human.

But then . . . what was he?

**AN:** Okay, guys, I know that I borrowed that from Twilight, but I promise, Susan is _not_ just taking Bella's place. I tried to find some other way for her to become aware that Edward wasn't human, but nothing that I thought of worked out. I promise, this is part of Twilight that I'm going to borrow.

Oh and I know that this story is only on chapter four, but I was severely disappointed by the lack of reviews on the last two chapters. Please, I am begging you, give me five or six reviews for this chapter and I will post the next chapter tonight. What do you say? We got a deal?

Lady Dawson


	5. Hospital Confrontations

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Five: Hospital Confrontations

I would just like to take this moment to say that I really, really, _really_ hate hospitals. Especially when I'm forced to spend hours upon hours there when there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. It's pointless and unnecessary. Maybe it's the whole thing with being in a place where they're sick and dying people all around me that makes me so adverse to them, but I really hate them. Hospitals are very sad places and I've had more than enough sadness within the past few years to last me a lifetime.

The infirmary back at camp wasn't so bad, but they had nectar and ambrosia to help with the healing process, plus as soon as they knew that I was perfectly fine, they would let me go. Hospitals, on the other hand, just continued to keep me there, even though I wasn't even hurt just to spite me. I didn't have a scratch on me! What was the point of keeping me there against my will when I wasn't even hurt? Why did I have to wait around for them to tell me that I was fine? I was well aware of that fact, thank you very much, so why I couldn't I just leave?

Tyler was on the bed across from me, getting his head stitched up by a nurse, apologising to me over and over again, saying that he didn't know what had happened, that he must have slid on some ice or something, but he didn't even remember going that fast. I think that he might have apologised on bended knee if the nurse would've let him up.

Charlie didn't help, when he got there about fifteen minutes after we had been transported to the hospital. He arrived in full police uniform, looking strained and anxious, which melted away into relief as he saw me on the bed, perfectly safe. Once he had made sure I was fine, he began berating Tyler, promising him that he had seen the end of his driving days. If it were possible, Tyler looked even more devastated now that he was being grilled by the Chief of Police. I actually felt sorry for him.

It wasn't actually his fault, the accident. I wasn't sure what had happened, but Tyler had no idea what he was doing. It was almost as if something or someone was controlling him, compelling him to hit me with the van . . .

But that was impossible, right? Could someone have controlled him just to take me out?

Maybe. It wouldn't actually surprise me. I didn't know what kind of creature had the power of mind-control, but I'm sure that there were some and if they had learned that the daughter of Poseidon was here . . .

Well, who knows what they would do. One thing for sure, Tyler hadn't been responsible for the accident.

It wasn't until many hours later that I met Edward's dad Carlisle, who was a doctor at the hospital. He was a pretty okay guy, but just as overwhelmingly handsome as any of his children, looking more like a model than he did a doctor, with the same golden eyes that his children had and the same pale skin, as though he hadn't seen the sun in many, many years, and his blond hair was slicked back, away from his face.

He had come to check up on me, to make sure that I was all right and after doing a few tests to make sure that I didn't have any concussions or anything, he allowed Charlie to take me home, though extracting a promise from both of us to come back if I experienced some post-traumatic stress or disorientation, but he was sure that I would be just fine.

Post-traumatic stress . . . I wanted to laugh at that one. I was already going through that. I had _come_ here just so I could get away from all the trauma from losing my friends.

I kept my mouth shut about Edward pushing me out of the way and saving my life, but I had a feeling that Dr. Cullen had checked up on me just so he could make sure that I hadn't seen anything that I was going to spill out to the rest of the town. Besides, nobody else had seen Edward there, so I wasn't about to say anything.

When Charlie went to sign some paperwork, I caught sight of Edward's reflection in one of the windows and stepped closer, towards the corner, poking my head around it and saw him with his father and sister Rosalie. I wasn't about to let him get away without an explanation, but I stopped where I was when I realised that they were having a heated discussion.

Although I couldn't hear what they were talking about, I distinctively heard Rosalie say something like, "anybody could have seen."

"What was I supposed to do, then?" Edward looked very angry, his golden eyes more dangerous than I had ever seen them before as he regarded his sister. "Let her die?"

"This isn't about you," Rosalie shot back, her beautiful features filled with anger and rage. "This is about all of us."

"I think we should take this into my office," Dr. Cullen murmured, appearing to be the referee between his two children. His eyes had travelled past Edward and Rosalie, over to where I was standing, watching them. Rosalie scowled at me, her anger increasing, and Edward's head turned towards me, his anger melting away, replaced with a guarded look.

"Can I talk to you?" I asked, keeping my voice level and even. "Now?" I added pointedly.

"Rosalie," Dr. Cullen said, taking his daughter by the arm and pulling her away from her brother, who stood still for a minute before he reluctantly walked over to me, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"What?" he asked when he finally reached me. I was caught off guard by the unfriendly tone and the wary, cautious look in his eyes and for a second, I just stared up at him, trying to figure out what to say.

"How did you get over to me so fast?" I said carefully, keeping my eyes fixed upon him, trying to detect any kind of lie, which was hard, because he seemed to be a professional at it. And it didn't help that my head was spinning thanks to the events of the day, trying to come up with an explanation that made some sort of sense.

And the only one that I could come up with was the one that I didn't want to believe.

The question that I asked was the easier of any that I could have asked, but nevertheless, his features slipped into their guarded position, refusing to relinquish any of the answers that he kept locked inside his head.

"I was standing right next to you, Susan," he told me, wide-eyed and innocent, as though willing me to believe what he was telling me, but his guarded gaze revealed the lie, even as well-delivered as it was.

"No," I corrected stubbornly, determinedly. "You weren't _anywhere_ near me, Edward. You were standing next to your car, which was on the other side of the lot, and then suddenly, you were standing right next me, as though you have . . . superspeed or something." Something flashed behind his eyes, but it went by so fast that I wasn't sure if I had imagined it or not. "Would you like to explain how you could do that?"

"Susan," he said, giving me a pacifying smile, trying to force me to believe the lies, "you hit your head. I think that you're a little confused. You should go home and get some rest and—"

"My head is fine, thanks to you," I said, folding my arms across my chest, starting to get annoyed with him. If I was an ordinary, everyday teenage girl, then I might have believed his lies, might have believed that there was nothing abnormal going on here, but the problem was that I wasn't normal, not by a long shot. "And I know what I saw."

"And what exactly was that?"

"You stopped the van," I pointed out, keeping my voice low enough so that nobody could hear what we were talking about. There was nobody around, but even walls have ears. "You pushed it away with your hand, Edward." I grabbed his hand, the one that had pushed the van away, and held it up to him, examining it swiftly. "That should have broken a bone, at the very least, if not crushed your entire arm. And yet . . . not even a mark to show for it. No human has the ability to do that." Some half-humans, but that was beside the point.

His expression had slipped back to angry as he yanked his hand away from me, shoving it back into his pocket. "Well . . . nobody's going to believe you," he told me.

I stared at him in amazement; is that really what he thought? That I wanted to know the truth just so I could spill it to the townsfolk and have them come after the Cullens with pitchforks? Did he really think that I was going to spill the secret of his abnormality to everybody?

Not that they would believe it, even if I did. Humans have the amazing ability to convince themselves that any kind of supernatural activity has some logical explanation.

Well, that, and the fact that the Mist can cover up anything that those of the supernatural world want to hide. I never have been able to figure out how to control the Mist, though my cousin Thalia, daughter of Zeus, was able to do it when we found Bianca and Nico.

Surprisingly, my voice was steady when I finally pried my tongue from the roof of my mouth and was able to speak.

"I wasn't going to tell anybody," I said. Edward glanced at me, surprised by the utter sincerity in my voice. "But I need to know what happened there, Edward. I have to know and believe me, it's not for the reasons that you think."

"Can't you just thank me and get over it?" Edward demanded, sounding angry again, but not, I realised, at me. Whatever he was angry about, whatever his sister was upset about, he wasn't angry at me.

"Thank you," I said sincerely, but I wasn't going to drop it. I meant what I had said; I needed to know the truth. I was a daughter of Poseidon. I couldn't just let this rest like it was a piece of homework he'd helped me with or something equally important. If nothing else, then I needed to know the truth so I could be sure that they weren't coming after me. When you're a demigod, you can't be too sure.

Edward read my expression carefully and let out a frustrated sigh. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope," I said, shaking my head. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't let things go that easily."

"Speaking of disappointment," Edward said, his voice suddenly as cold as ice, "I hope that you enjoy it, because if you try and find out the truth, you'll be in for a great deal of disappointment."

He turned on his heel and was about to walk away when I whispered, "You're not the only one with secrets, Edward Cullen."

Stopping dead in his tracks, Edward turned around to face me, his golden eyes meeting my blue-green ones. His were filled with anger mixed with confusion while mine were steady and unyielding.

"You're not the only one," I repeated.

Edward stared at me with an expression that I couldn't quite recognise; it might have been surprise, wonder, or disbelief—or it might have been a combination of all three, but he just stared at me as though he had never met anybody quite like me before.

Ha. He didn't know how much that was true. Unless he was more than fifty years old, he never could have met a daughter of Poseidon before.

But instead of saying that particular thought, I turned on my heel and walked away from him, leaving him with my parting words as I steered towards where I knew Charlie was. He was finishing up the paperwork and had unpleasant news with him; he had called my mother.

And she had been furious—not that I had been in a car accident, mind you, but that Charlie had actually had the nerve to call her, interrupting a dinner party that she was having with her friends, to inform her that her wayward daughter was in the hospital. She apparently had some pretty nasty things to say to her brother before she had hung up. So now, in addition to everything else that was going on, Charlie was pretty angry at his sister.

The whole way home, he kept muttering under his breath. "Irresponsible . . . her own child . . . doesn't even care . . . careless, childish, pleasure-seeking . . . never should have been allowed to be a parent . . ." He muttered a few things about Dad, too, something about leaving me in the irresponsible hands of my mother.

Not wanting to make Poseidon angry enough to start up a storm, I quickly put in, "It wasn't Dad's fault, Uncle Charlie. He seriously did help me out after I ran away. He was the one who . . . got me into the school that I was in and helped me out when I needed it."

"Humph," Charlie grumbled. "Well . . . maybe. You know, you never did tell me what your dad does."

"Um . . ." My mind frantically searched for an answer that wouldn't sound like an outrageous lie. Or too close to the truth. "He takes care of the sea and the animals there."

Charlie accepted this easily as we pulled into the driveway and headed into the house.

Being in a near-accident is nowhere near fun, but apparently, Charlie thought that I'd had a traumatic enough experience that I didn't need to have food poisoning and earn a second trip to a hospital, so he picked up a pizza on the way home, which cheered me up immensely.

Of course, that was until I got home and found out that Charlie had called Percy and when I got home, the answering machine was blinking furiously, showing that there were a number of missed calls. I groaned as soon as I heard the first message, which was practically yelling at me to call him as soon as I got it, the second one demanding to know why I hadn't called him back and so on and so forth.

Of course, every message wasn't from him. No, about half of them were from Briar, whom Percy had called to alert him to what had happened. Annoying, overprotective boys.

"I _can_ take care of myself, guys," I muttered as I erased the messages. Charlie was having a hard time not laughing as he heard Percy yelling—actually, screeching is more like it—at me to pick up the phone so he could make sure that I was still alive.

Shaking my head in annoyance, I picked up the phone and dialled Percy's number. His mom Sally was more than a little relieved when I spoke. I always liked Sally; she's always been more of a second mother to me, more of a mom than my real one, anyway. And she's always been nice to me and to Tyson, Percy's and my half-brother, whose a Cyclops.

When Percy got on the phone, he was relieved to find that I was still alive and then proceeded to tell me off for being so reckless, though how I could have reckless when I was just standing there, next to my car, I had no idea.

I thought about telling him about Tyler, about my theory of him being controlled by something or someone, but I immediately decided against it. While it couldn't hurt to have another half-blood here, I didn't want him worrying about me. Besides, I didn't have any proof and until I was sure that something was going on with that, I didn't want him to worry.

And besides, if he knew that the Cullens weren't entirely human, if I was living in the same town that there were otherworldly creatures living at, I knew that he would come directly to Forks so he could drag me back to camp and put me under surveillance twenty four hours a day, seven days a week just to make sure that I wouldn't sneak back.

Have I mentioned that having an overprotective big brother can be very, very, _very_ annoying?

Gods, if I didn't love him so much, I would probably just knock him out with my sword half the time. Actually, I have done that, one time during Capture the Flag, but it was an accident. It was!

After many, many assurances that I was fine and he didn't need to come to Forks to check up on me—and Percy demanded to talk to Charlie just so my uncle to tell him that I was okay—I finally managed to convince my brother that I was fine and get off the phone and actually enjoy the pizza that Charlie had gotten for dinner.

The baseball game had been turned on while I was on the phone, so after I was finished eating, I wandered into the kitchen and did the dishes, cleaning up the kitchen as best I could before I headed upstairs.

I couldn't focus on my homework—besides, I didn't even have that much, just some problems for math and I could do those during lunch tomorrow or maybe before school—so I just crawled into bed, hoping very much that tomorrow would come quickly.

Maybe the day's events had wiped me out more than I had originally thought, because while I thought that I would stay up for hours, I was asleep within ten minutes.

And that was the first time that I ever dreamed of Edward Cullen.


	6. Unexpected Visitor

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Six: Unexpected Visitor

Charlie tried to talk me into staying home the next day, but I was far too interested in finding what Edward was going to do or say to stay at home. Of course, if I'd known what I was going to be bombarded with, staying home might have been a better alternative.

For those who hadn't been there when the accident had happened, they heard about it all too quickly, for the story spread around school like a wildfire. No matter where I went that day, no matter which way I turned, I kept being ambushed by fellow students, who demanded to know what had happened and how I'd managed to get out of the way in time without a scratch on me.

Rather than tell the truth about what had happened, I simply said that Edward had pushed me out of the way. Yesterday's events had happened so fast that nobody would question why they hadn't seen him there and I kept my mouth shut about him getting over to me in two seconds—that was something that they would find interesting and unsettling.

People were impressed with the fact that Edward Cullen, of all people, had rushed to my aid, but they weren't about to ask him for any details. Nobody ever approached the Cullens for any comments.

Whenever I saw Edward that day or the days that followed, I tried to talk to him, both just casual small talk and about the accident, but he usually made up some excuse to get away from me as fast as I could. And when he couldn't get away from me, like during science class, he would either just ignore me or push me onto a safer subject, like getting me to talk about my friends and family back home or what my school had been like back there, anything to keep me distracted from the topic that I wanted to talk to him with.

Percy kept calling every day after the accident, just to make sure that I wasn't getting myself killed, and every time that he did, he all but ordered me to come back to New York.

Somehow, though, I found it easy to tell him not. As amazing as it was, I was actually happy here. And it wasn't like I was the same helpless little girl that I was when I ran away from home. I had grown up, had helped save Olympus, and became an able warrior in my own right. I was more than capable of defending myself.

Granted, there were some things about Forks that I didn't particularly like, something that never would have been a problem at camp. Here, nobody knew the truth about me, nobody knew who my dad was. All they knew was that I was the daughter of Chief Swan's irresponsible younger sister, who came to Forks to live with her uncle. But that was only half of who I was and the other half was someone that I had to hide from the rest of the world. None of them could know that I was a daughter of Poseidon and that was something that I hated. Because of that simple fact, I had to hide half of who I was.

But other than that, I was far happier here than I'd been in New York for the longest time. After the war started, after I'd been betrayed by my best friend, I had to harden my heart and become the warrior that I was destined to become. By becoming that warrior, though, I had to shut down parts of myself, parts that made me who I was, parts that made up Susan Dawson.

Living amongst mortals and doing normal kid stuff like going to the mall with my friends and homework and watching TV instead of worrying about the end of the world . . . I started to find the pieces of myself that I had lost long ago, pieces that I hadn't even realised I had been missing. And a lot of that had more to do with Edward than anything else.

I didn't know who or what he was, but he still had such an enormous impact on me. He could be more aggravating than any boy that I'd ever met and when he wasn't ignoring me, he was cryptic and mysterious, but I still had such powerful feelings for him, feelings that I didn't think were going away and I wasn't sure that I wanted them to. But he made me want to find the pieces of myself that I had lost.

Last year, when the war was over and we were celebrating our victory up on Olympus—six hundredth floor of the Empire State Building—Aphrodite approached me. She told me that she had plans for me, plans that would begin when I went to the land of eternal rain.

That's probably why I waited so long to come to Forks. For nearly a year, I maintained a strong front, convincing Chiron, Percy, Briar . . . even myself that I was fine, that I could get through this, but in the end, it just got to be too much. Even though I worried about Aphrodite's plans, I knew that I had to go.

Don't get me wrong, I was in love with the idea of love and wanted desperately to have that epic love that so many girls dream about, but when the goddess of love gets involved in your love life, it's bound to be complicated, especially when she happens to be a big fan of those doomed romances, those forbidden loves . . . Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet . . . Buffy and Angel.

Now that I was here, though, I was kind of glad that I had come here, glad that I had put my misgivings aside and moved in with my uncle, but I was still worried. I could no longer dismiss my growing feelings for Edward and I knew now that he and his family weren't human—at least, not completely. They could very well be part human. I hadn't ruled that out, even though I was pretty sure that they weren't. But I've been wrong from time to time.

I still wasn't sure about the monster theory. If they were otherworldly creatures, then that would explain a lot. But if they were, then why was Alice so nice to me my first day here? And why would Edward save my life? Why didn't he just let that van crush me?

Nothing that I came up with made any sense and Annabeth still hadn't gotten back to me yet, so I'm guessing that she didn't come up with anything, which made me kind of nervous. If _Annabeth Chase_ couldn't find any answers, then what good did I have finding them?

And it didn't help that Edward was pretty much ignoring me since the day of the accident, only speaking to me whenever I tried talking to him and only about unimportant stuff, which made trying to solve the mystery only that much harder. I'm pretty sure that was what he was trying to do, though, divert me away from trying to find out the truth.

Hah. If he thought that I was going to give up that easily, then he had another think coming. Or however that expression goes.

But I think he also was under the impression that I was going to tell every person that I came across what I had seen that day. Certainly enough people had approached me to send a herd of people with pitchforks after him and his family. All I told people, though, was that he had pushed me out of the way, not enough to start a witch hunt.

My parting words seemed to hold a strong grip on him, though, because despite the way he tried to ignore me, I could feel him studying me carefully, watching my every move, though by the time I looked over at him, his golden gaze was nowhere near me, looking instead at one of his siblings or Mr. Molina or anything else other than me. He seemed to be trying to figure out what I was, just as I was doing with him.

At times, I really wished that I could talk to Valentine, especially at the moment. Since she was a daughter of Aphrodite, Val was a lot better in the romance department than I was. I just wished that I could get her advice on this, wish she could give me guidance on what to do, because I was slowly and steadily falling for Edward Cullen.

I could feel it. I could feel it in every fibre of my being. Whenever he was around me, even when he was ignoring me, my body felt as though it were on an electric charge. My palms would get all sweaty and my heart started beating as though I had just climbed the lava wall at camp and believe me, I'm not the best climber in the world.

And most of all, I could feel it whenever he got close to me. Whenever he got near me, I got this tingle in my spine, deep within my soul that told me that Edward was close. It both threw me and fascinated me.

But the number one thing that told me that I was falling for Edward was that I kept having dreams about him every night, which was a blessing after months and months of nightmares about the war.

Instead of having nightmares about the many battles we were in, especially when Valentine and the others had been killed, I kept seeing Edward in my visions. And they were especially . . . vivid.

And we were always in the most . . . interesting position. Every night, I would find myself kissing Edward, right here in my bedroom, feeling his lips upon mine. My arms were wrapped around his neck and his fingers weaved themselves through my hair as he kissed me back passionately. All of the restraints, all of the control that we maintained while we were awake were swept away as though they were nothing and I gave in to the building desire that were slowly giving way.

And every morning, when I woke up, I found my face was bright red without the use of make-up. Thankfully, though, Charlie never seemed to notice.

Or if he did, he pretended not to.

But tonight, it was different. Sure, it was the same dream. Edward would be standing in my bedroom, as though destined to watch over me, and I would pull him towards me and we would start kissing, wrapped in a passionate embrace. When he lifted his head, though, that's when the wonderful dream quickly turned into a nightmare.

His golden eyes were wild and dangerous, like an animal's, his teeth were barred, and deep, low growl escaped from deep within his throat.

And most of all . . . there was blood on his lips.

With a gasp, I sat up straight, looking wildly around my bedroom and as my gaze collided with someone standing near my bookcase, I thought that I was still dreaming.

Edward was standing right across from me, just watching me with a longing look, but the moment I woke up, it immediately changed to surprise and alarm flashed through his golden eyes as my blue-green one settled on him.

I was sure that I was still dreaming, but just to be on the safe side, I reached across, towards my nightstand, and flipped the lamp on, throwing the room into light. My head turned away from Edward for a miniature of a second, but in the time that I had looked away and back towards where I had seen him, he had vanished.

Confused, I slid out of bed, staring around my room as though I expected him to pop out of my closet or appear right next to my window, which was slightly open. Slowly, I proceeded over to it, pushing it open all the way and staring out into the dark night, lit only by the street lights, but there was no sign of anybody standing there.

And yet . . . I had been _so_ sure that I had seen him . . .

"Edward?" I whispered into the night, still not convinced that it had just been the aftermath of a dream. There was no reply. "Edward, are you there?"

No one answered and I was forced to admit that there was no one out there and closed my window, walking back over to my bed and crawling back underneath the covers, laying my head down on my bed, but I doubted that I would get any more sleep tonight, not as wired as I was and with that vision of Edward with blood on his lips hanging over me.

Demigod dreams are very rarely just dreams. In fact, more often than not, they contain some hidden meaning behind them—or sometimes, we can see our enemies across great distances and see what they might be planning. When the situation grows dire, then dreams become that much more intense. And usually contain some important information.

I used to have them, during the final battle, but I haven't had any precognition dreams for awhile—much less dreams. Usually, it's just been the nightmares of everything that had happened.

The nightmares about the war were just past events that were plaguing me in my sleep. Dreams about Edward and me kissing I could put off because of my growing feelings towards him, though I was very reluctant to admit that. But there was no way that I could explain away this particular dream. How could I explain seeing the boy that was slowly becoming something more to me like that? It was like he was an animal . . . and I didn't know where to put that.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew that the dream meant something and I just couldn't explain it away.

With the dream hanging over my head and being unable to get back to sleep after I woke up, it was no wonder that I looked so horrible when it was finally time to go to school. I guess I can't really blame Charlie for looking worried when he saw me and asked me if I wanted to stay home from school. For such an unobservant guy, he can amazingly perceptive at times.

I thought about confronting Edward when I got to school and demand if he had been in my room last night, but I decided against it. Things were strained enough between us as it was and I really didn't want to make things worse than they already were. So I just let it go, though I did notice that he seemed to be watching me more closely than usual.

But I had enough problems to worry about besides Edward and that freak of a dream. And it was something far more worrisome than whether or not the boy that I was falling in love with was a monster.

The homecoming dance.

And unfortunately, I seemed to have boys crowding around me, asking—well, demanding might be a better term for it—to take me to the dance. Some of them even got into an argument over it and I used their distraction to escape.

Of course, some of them didn't give up so easily. For instance, Mike, who had already taken to following me around like a lost puppy, seemed to take it upon himself to become my personal bodyguard everywhere I went and I was starting to get a little irritated with him. And unfortunately, I couldn't get away from him fast enough, so I just fed him this whole line about how I had a friend coming from out of town that weekend and it would be rude to go to the dance and leave them by themselves.

Mike seemed to buy that story and I subtly pushed him towards Jessica, suggesting that he ask her, which he did, but I don't think that she was too happy when she found out that she was the second choice. I don't know who told her, but she at least seemed happier than she had for awhile. Truthfully, I hoped that she would be able to steal his attention away from me, because honestly, Mike was starting to get on my nerves and I was getting close to clobbering him during gym class, but I didn't want to take a leaf out of my brother's book and start getting kicked out of every school that I went to. So rather than bash him senseless, I just pointed out the obvious to him.

My story must have spread around school, because when I sat down in science, pulling my notebook out of my backpack, Edward, who was already in his seat, asked abruptly, "So who's the visitor coming from out of town?"

I looked at him quickly, making sure that I hadn't been imagining things, because he hadn't spoken to me in weeks, not unless I had asked him a question first and even then, the answer was usually "yes" or "no."

"Are you talking to me again?" I asked when I managed to find my voice, ignoring the fluttering in my chest as I looked into his slightly darker eyes.

"You didn't answer my question."

"You don't answer any of mine," I returned, turning away from him, piercing my lips together. "I mean, you don't talk to me, you barely even look at me, you barely even acknowledge that I'm in the same room . . . you won't even look me in the eye."

Edward sighed, but he inclined his head so that his golden eyes were looking directly into my blue-green ones, the first time that he had done so in weeks. "Hello," he said in a very soft, enthralling voice that caused a shiver to travel down my back and I silently cursed him for making me feel this way, frustrated by the effect that he had on me.

"Nobody," I muttered darkly. "I was just trying to give Mike an excuse to let him down easily." And Tyler and every other boy who had approached me, trying to ask me to the dance. It was incredible how popular I was with the male crowd here. Practically every male in the school had come forward to try their hand; some of them approached me shyly while others with egotistical confidence. I'd never been this popular before.

"So you don't like Mike or any of them?" Edward asked. I could hear the delight in his voice, though I couldn't fathom the reason.

"No. Not like that," I said, eyeing him. "Why?"

Edward just smiled. "No reason," he said easily. "Quiet now, Mr. Molina's starting to notice."

I erected my head towards the front of the room, where class had already started, expecting Mr. Molina to be coming towards us, demanding to know what he was talking about so he could scold us for not paying attention, but he had barely even turned around when I looked forward and by the time he was looking towards us, we were just copying down notes.

Discreetly, I looked at Edward out of the corner of my eyes, wondering how he had known that Mr. Molina was going to try and catch us talking. And why was he asking me about Mike and all the others? And _why_, after weeks of silence, was he starting to talk to me again?

I fully intended to escape the room and leave campus before Edward could catch up with me, but he was a lot faster that he appeared to be and before I even rounded the corner, he was right next to me, falling into step next to me.

"Susan, look, I know that I'm being rude all of the time and ignoring you, but believe me, it's for the best," he said sincerely. "I'm sorry, but I'm not somebody that you want to be friends with. I'm not somebody that somebody like you _should_ be friends with."

"What do you mean, 'somebody like me'?" I demanded, trying to ignore the hurt that rose through me at his rejection. I could feel tears rising, but I refused to let them fall; I wasn't about to let him see me cry.

Edward looked uncomfortable, but he said softly, "I mean . . . you're sweet, kind, and . . . you're beautiful." He said this last one very softly, as though he expected an avalanche to come crashing down around us the moment he said it.

I stood very still, just staring at him with wide eyes. "You think I'm beautiful?" I said very softly.

He looked up. "I know you are. Believe me, I've seen scores of pretty girls, been approached by many lovely women . . . and none of them have ever held the amount of beauty that you possess."

I was turning a very interesting shade of red. "You're sweet," I said after a long moment. "A terrible liar . . . but sweet."

"Who says I'm lying?" Edward sounded wounded.

Looking away, I shook my head. "Edward, you know you can very frustrating? I mean, honestly, what do you expect from me? First day that we met, you completely ignored me, then the next day you were nice to me, then you were . . . well, polite enough, and then you saved me from a moving vehicle and were back to ignoring me, and now you're being nice to me again. Do you really think that it's funny to play with my feelings like this? Because let me tell you something: it's really not fun. If you were going to regret it afterwards, then why didn't you just let the van crush me?"

Judging by the look in his eyes, I knew that I had shocked him and I was a bit pleased by that fact. His voice was filled with quiet disbelief as he spoke. "You think I regret saving your life?"

What I wanted to say was yes, that's exactly what I thought, but one look in his golden eyes and I knew that whatever he was feeling, it wasn't regret. Suppressing a sigh, I folded my arms across my chest, letting my frustration at him melt away.

"I don't know," I confessed. "Maybe you just regret that I saw what I did that day and won't let it go. And you're afraid that I'm going to find out the truth." He didn't argue. "What could be so horrible that you're terrified that I'm going to find it out?"

"Some things are better left mysteries," Edward said softly. "Some secrets are better left undiscovered."

Taking a deep breath, I turned so that I was facing him fully and I looked at him straight in the eye.

"Edward," I said seriously as his golden gaze tore into my blue-green ones, "do you honestly think that I would tell anybody the truth? I told you you're not the only one with secrets around here. Would I spill your secret, if I've done such a good job hiding mine?"

"No," Edward said at once. "I know that you wouldn't tell anybody. I know you didn't tell anybody what you saw that day and I hope you know I'm very grateful."

For a moment, I hesitated, watching him. "Are you going to tell me how you stopped the van?" I asked him. His gaze stilled maintained that guarded, cautious look, but it was softer now. "Or am I going to have to figure it out on my own?"

"I wish that you wouldn't," Edward muttered. There were people around us, talking quietly, but none of them stopped so they could listen in to what we were talking about. I barely even noticed them, though, too focused on Edward Cullen. "And I had an adrenaline rush."

With a scoff, I turned away from him, striding towards the door and was out the door within a few seconds, but Edward caught up with me easily, striding after me through the parking lot.

"You don't believe me?"

"You know what? I don't," I said angrily, whirling around to look directly at him. "Look, Edward, I have seen things that most people would never even _dream _about. I've experienced things that most people would consider a myth. I've seen things . . . you never could have imagined. So do not expect me to believe some flimsy excuse that people use just to logic themselves away from the truth. Just because humans convince themselves of logical explanations doesn't mean that I'm going to believe it." So caught up in my own tirade, I didn't even notice that I'd said humans, as though I wasn't one. But Edward did and his eyes narrowed slightly. "Nobody has the ability to crush the side of a truck with an adrenaline rush and walk away without so much as a mark. Why don't you just tell me the truth? I'm going to figure it out eventually. Or do you not trust me with the big, bad Cullen secret?"

"It's not a matter of trust," Edward replied quietly, earnestly. "I am trying to _protect_ you from my secret, Susan. I'm not someone that you should be around, all right? I'm dangerous," he said in a voice that would have sent any other girl cowering, but I held my ground. "You don't want to be involved with me; you really don't." The way he said it . . . he seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as me.

"And maybe I'm just as dangerous as you are," I replied calmly, shifting my bag higher onto my shoulder. "Look . . . Edward, this isn't getting us anywhere. You say you're dangerous, but guess what? I've been around danger for the past five years and here I am, still alive. I've done things, seen things . . . that would send the bravest man in the world crawling under his bed. My life is not the safe, secure world that you put me in. And as much as we might want to deny it, I don't think that either one of us wants to stay away from each other." Edward didn't argue, but his lips pierced together tightly. "Why don't we just . . . spend some time together? See where it goes. It couldn't hurt," I pointed out.

Edward considered my words, mulling over them. At long last, he nodded. "Maybe you're right," he acknowledged. The first stirrings of hope touched my heart at his words.

"Maybe I am," I agreed. His mouth twitched, like he was trying very hard not to smile. "Look, Jessica and everybody is planning this big beach trip tomorrow; why don't you come with us? No pressure," I pointed out. "No expectations, just two people hanging out at the beach with some friends."

He nodded, thoughtful. "Which beach?"

"La Push," I replied, remembering what Mike had told me when Jessica had brought up the beach trip at lunch and I had been unexpectedly been invited along and I said yes without even thinking about it.

The second that I said the name, though, Edward frowned, as though he had changed his mind as soon as he heard it.

"What?" I asked, alarmed. "What's wrong with that beach?"

Apparently, he'd listened when I'd warned him not to give me some flimsy excuse, because he said, "It's just not a good idea for me to go down there."

"What do you mean?" Why couldn't he go down there? It couldn't be dangerous, could it? If it was, then I suspected that he would tell me not to go down there. And anyway, he had shoved a two-ton van away from him as though it were nothing. I doubted that there was much that was dangerous to him.

"Nothing," Edward sighed, looking distracted. "Look, maybe some other time, okay? I have to go," he said, making a quick exit towards his car, where his siblings were waiting for him, watching the interaction warily. Alice, however, smiled at me, giving me a friendly wave. I shyly waved back, but wandered towards my car, glancing towards Edward as he climbed into his car and drove away.

I couldn't figure out what had just happened. For one second, I really thought that I might be getting through to Edward and we would be getting on the right track, back to talking and maybe hanging out, maybe becoming friends. But then, one mention of some random beach and he turned back into cryptic guy. Edward Cullen was one guy that I just couldn't figure out.

Sometimes monsters were easier to deal with than a normal life, I thought glumly as I climbed into my truck and navigated my way out of the parking lot, heading towards my house. At least with monsters, I knew what I was dealing with.

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I pulled into my usual parking spot in the driveway without even noticing that somebody else was sitting on the steps, perfectly calm and composed, waiting for me.

Actually, I didn't even notice her until I was about to climb up the steps and I looked up, jumping back when I saw her.

"Oh!" I gasped, my hand moving over to my heart, which had jolted as though I had been hit with electricity. "Annabeth!"

"Hi, Susan," Annabeth Chase said. It wasn't until I noticed her solemn look that I knew that she had very bad news. "We need to talk."


	7. Legends of the Cullens

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Seven: Legends of the Cullens

"Annabeth . . . what are you doing here?" I asked. To say that I was surprised to see her was the understatement of the year. I was more than a little shocked to see Annabeth sitting right on my porch like she was waiting for me. "And what do you mean, we need to talk? What's wrong? Is Percy . . .?"

"Percy's fine," she assured me. "At least, he was when I left. Who knows what kind of trouble that boy can find when he's left on his own?"

We both chuckled; Percy could find more trouble than any other demigod in history, even being a child of one of the Big Three. I never seemed to get into half as much trouble as my brother did. Of course, I'd thought that once the prophecy was over and done with, then things would calm down a little, but no such luck.

"This is about what you called me about a few weeks ago," Annabeth explained, sobering up. "About that family that you were so worried about, the Cullens?"

My blood chilled the second that she said the name and I stared at her, biting my lip fretfully. "Did you find something out?"

"You won't _believe_ what I found out," Annabeth sighed. "Look, can we go inside? This isn't the kind of stuff that you want to talk about on the front lawn. I mean, you do have neighbours and this isn't New York. If people overhear, they're bound to talk."

Suppressing a sigh, but knowing that she had a point, I climbed up the stairs and unlocked the door. Thank the gods that Charlie wasn't home yet, because I had the feeling that this wasn't something that I wanted him to overhear.

"Did you want something to drink?" I asked as I headed into the kitchen. "We've got iced tea."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Sure, iced tea is good," she said. "Could you please sit down so we can talk about what I found out?"

I poured us both a glass of iced tea and sat down at the kitchen table, where Annabeth had already sat down, her grey eyes—the mark of a child of Athena—stormy.

Once I was settled down, I looked towards my brother's girlfriend nervously. "All right . . . so what did you find out?"

"Okay, from what you told me, all of the Cullen family are extraordinarily beautiful, pale to the extreme, and their eyes change colour, ranging from black to gold, correct?" she said, businesslike. I nodded. "I did all the research that I could, searching everything that I could on Greek myths to try and find anything that sounded what you were talking about. I tried everything, from books to the Internet and nothing seemed to fit."

"So then what are they?" I asked. "Because believe me, they're definitely not human."

She eyed me curiously. "You're sure about that, aren't you?"

"Believe me," I sighed. "I can't go into the details; I promised. But I can tell you that they are most definitely not human. Half-human, maybe, but I'm starting to doubt that . . ."

"Anyway," Annabeth interrupted, "I started doing some research around this area, on the Quileute legends." The Quileute tribe lived on a reservation on the other side of Forks. "And I found some interesting stories. Did you know that according to Quileute legend, their tribe is descended from wolves?"

"What?" I said, trying very hard not to laugh. "How can anybody be descended from wolves?"

"That's what I read, anyway," Annabeth said, shrugging. "I was trying to work that one out, myself . . . until I figured out that they weren't really descended _from _wolves. They could turn _into_ wolves. Their ancestors were shape-shifters that took on the form of a wolf."

"Wait a minute . . . the Quileutes are descended from _werewolves_?" I interrupted, holding up my hand. "And what does this have to do with the Cullens?"

"I'm getting to that part," Annabeth explained. "And no, they're not descended from werewolves, though that's what they believe. Werewolves transform during the full moon and the Quileutes could transform into wolves any time they wanted. They're just shape-shifters; the wolf form was merely by chance. It could have taken any form during the first transformation of the original shape-shifters. But I'm pretty sure that _they_ believe that they're werewolves. And they only have one natural enemy, which is what I came to talk to you about."

"And it was so important that you couldn't do it over the phone?"

"Believe me," Annabeth said grimly, "this isn't the sort of thing that I would like to do over the phone. In fact, I'd prefer not to tell you at all, but you'll keep digging until you find something."

"Annabeth Chase," I said, starting to get a little bit irritated, "I have had a really long day and I really wish that you would just get to the point. What does any of these Quileute legends have to do with Edward and his family? And what natural enemy are we talking about?"

"The website that I found only had a few vague descriptions of it, but they called them the Cold Ones," Annabeth said matter-of-factly.

Cold Ones . . .

A shiver travelled up my spine as my mind travelled back to the day of the car accident, when his hand had accidentally brushed against mine. Even throughout all the chaos, even with my mind as shocked and stunned as it was, I still remembered how cold his hand had felt, as though it were ice.

"What are the Cold Ones?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly.

Annabeth hesitated, finally sipping her iced tea in order to give herself a moment's peace. "I did some research on them," she said in a clipped tone, not meeting my eyes now. "Most of the stuff I found was ridiculous, of course, and nothing made any sense. But I did find this one website that actually had some authentic legends on it. Do you have a computer?" she asked. "I'll show you."

I showed her upstairs to my bedroom, turning on my computer and clicking on the internet icon. Annabeth typed in the website, revealing a rather grotesque picture on the home page, of a creature devouring a person.

"Gross," I muttered.

"It gets better," Annabeth said, shrugging. "Look, almost everything that you read about is true. There's hardly anything that's just made-up. Almost everything that you read is actually fact, but most of the reality has been lost in time and shifting memory, details lost . . .

"But a lot of truth remains in the legends. Like speed," she said, glancing towards my expression.

In my mind's eye, I saw Edward the day of the accident, how he had been on the other side of the parking lot than I was, and then suddenly, he was right next to me in two seconds, shielding me with his body, with no thought or concern for himself.

"Strength . . ."

He had protected me with his body and held his hand out towards the van as it swerved towards us, pushing it away as though it were nothing and the indent of his hand was imprinted in Tyler's truck.

"Cold-skinned," Annabeth added, "which is why the Quileutes call them 'The Cold Ones.'" She watched my expression carefully as my gaze swept across the screen, anxiety making my dyslexia worse than ever, but words popped up on the screen, catching my attention and with every one, my mouth got drier than it was, despite the iced tea.

_Half-immortal . . ._

_Undead . . ._

_Drank blood . . ._

My mouth trembled as I stared across the page, finally getting what Annabeth had been trying to tell me right from the very beginning. But it couldn't be, I thought with growing horror, it absolutely could _not_ be, because if it was true, then that would mean . . .

"Vampire," I whispered, my voice shaking, refusing to believe what I was seeing, my heart and my mind fighting against one another, each trying to make me reason with it.

It couldn't be . . . it absolutely could not be, because if it was true, then that would mean that the wonderful boy that I was falling in love . . . the first person that I'd ever trusted with my heart with, the only person that I would give my heart to without question wasn't just immortal; he was also my enemy.

No, I immediately rejected the idea. Even if this were true, that didn't automatically make Edward my enemy. Just because he was a vampire, that didn't mean that he was evil. Maybe he and his family were different . . . maybe they were good.

Of course they had to be good. Why else would Edward have saved my life that day and continue to warn me against coming near him, telling me that it was for my own good that he stayed away from me, warning me that he was dangerous.

Slowly, I turned around to face Annabeth, who had grown very quiet as I had searched the website. "Are you absolutely sure about this?" I asked, my voice surprisingly steady.

"Without a doubt," Annabeth replied, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I wouldn't have come to warn you if I had." She hesitated. "But there is one thing that you should know . . ."

"What?"

"Well, you said that all of them have golden eyes, right?" she sought to clarify. I nodded. "That's what the strange part was . . . everything that I could find . . . the legends say that vampires are identified by their red eyes."

"Red eyes?" I said, confused. "But they don't have red ones . . ."

"Yeah, that's the weird part," Annabeth said, nodding. "And the weirder part is that this town doesn't have an abnormal amount of disappearances. You know, people who have vanished without a trace, their bodies never found. Usually, when there's a vampire in town, there's a least something. But Forks isn't just average, it's below average. I don't know what's going on . . . maybe they're getting their food from somewhere else, but . . ." She paused, still studying me carefully. "Susan, you need to come home."

"What?" I demanded, spinning around in my chair to look at her.

"You heard me," Annabeth said firmly. "Vampires are dangerous, all right? Contrary to popular belief, there isn't a whole lot of ways to kill them. You have to literally rip them apart and burn the pieces. You can't just stake them like on Buffy or something. You need to come home. It's too dangerous for you here, with a coven of vampires here."

"No," I said, shaking my head immediately.

"Susan . . ."

"Annabeth," I said more forcibly, "I said no. I'm not coming back to New York, all right? If Edward or any of them wanted to hurt me, they would have done it long before now. And I can take care of myself. I appreciate the concern, but I know what I'm doing. I'm sixteen years old, Annabeth. I'm not a kid anymore," I assured her. "Besides, what could be worse than fighting the Titans?"

She sighed. "I knew that you were going to say that," she complained. "Well, just don't get yourself killed, all right? Percy will never let me hear the end of it."

"Oh, he can't really find a way to blame you for my staying here," I said, rolling my eyes. "How's that going, by the way?"

Annabeth grinned. "Good," she said happily before her expression turned sombre. "But in all seriousness, Susan . . . be careful. And don't do anything stupid, like get yourself killed."

"You know I won't."

She sighed. "I'm hoping," she replied. "But promise me that you'll send an Iris-message the second that you need help."

"I promise," I assured her. "How did you even get here, anyway? You didn't fly all the way out here?"

"Of course," Annabeth said, grinning. "Just not the way that you're talking about," she added, jabbing her thumb towards the window. As I poked my head out, I saw a familiar figure out there.

"Blackjack!" I said with a laugh, grinning at the black pegasus that was Percy's. Or at least, he was loyal to Percy, since Percy kind of helped rescue him, plus our dad is the one who created horses. It's not the first time that a horse or pegasus has delivered inexplicable loyalty to either one of us.

_Hey, boss-lady!_ Blackjack said cheerfully. Since Dad was the one who created horses, I can talk telepathically with them. _Got any donuts or something hanging around? It's been a really long flight_, he said pathetically. _I could use an energy boost for the road. _

Shaking my head, I said dryly, "I spoil you too much, you know that? Don't tell Percy; he'll never let me hear the end of it."

_You got it, boss-lady!_ Blackjack said cheerfully as I disappeared into the kitchen and produced some sugar cubes, which he munched on hungrily and noisily, but complained when I also ordered him to eat an apple.

"Eat it or it'll be carrots all next summer," I warned him. Annabeth was trying very hard not to laugh.

"You have a way with pegasus," she said, shaking her head, grey eyes gleaming with amusement.

"Better than with people, I sometimes think," I said, shrugging. "Thanks, Annabeth, for . . . well, thanks," I muttered, shoving my hands into my pockets. "I really appreciate it."

"You're welcome," Annabeth replied, smiling, but it faded away in a second. "You know I've got to tell Percy."

"I know . . . I'm just asking you to wait a little bit," I implored her. "Don't tell him yet; not until I can figure all this out and I won't be able to do that if my overprotective big brother shows up and drags me off to New York."

Annabeth sighed. "Fine . . . but if he asks me about this, I'm not going to lie to him," she told me.

"Fair enough."

She nodded briskly as she climbed on to Blackjack, patting his neck affectionately. "All right . . . well, you'd better come back to camp alive . . . Percy isn't any fun when he's depressed."

"Thanks, Annabeth," I said, rolling my eyes. "Tell him I love him, okay?"

She winked at me then urged Blackjack forward, taking to the sky with ease and soaring through it with finesse before pegasus and rider finally disappeared into the Washington skies, slipping into the clouds and then, at long last, vanished from sight.

I stared at the skies where they had disappeared, my hands in my pockets as my mind spun by what Annabeth had just revealed.

Vampires . . .

The Cullens were vampires . . .

Was it really so impossible to believe? Was it really any more impossible than anything that I had faced in the past four years? What did I really expect to find when I found out the truth? I mean, I'd known they were otherworldly and Annabeth was right; everything that I knew added up to what she had pointed out.

But it didn't matter. Because even if it was true, I couldn't believe that Edward was somebody who would want to hurt me. Maybe he and his family were different . . . maybe they were good.

Of course he was good, I thought desperately, forcibly trying to convince myself otherwise. If he wasn't, then why would he have saved my life that day? Why didn't he just let me die?

Maybe I was going crazy, maybe I was just trying to come up with some plausible excuse in my head, maybe I just didn't want to believe that Edward was somebody who would want to hurt me, but I also couldn't deny what Annabeth had told me, what my head had known all along, but my heart had simply refused to believe.

Edward Cullen was a vampire.

* * *

I'd planned on confronting him about what I'd found out the very next day, planned on tracking him down the second that he climbed out of his car and demand some answers, but he didn't show up.

What did show up was the sun. When I woke up that morning, the sun had finally peaked out from behind the clouds, shining down on Forks. Jessica was more the pleased by it, almost jumping up and down as she saw the bright and sunny day, saying that it was perfect for a trip to the beach.

Since Edward and his siblings weren't in school, there was no point in putting off the trip just so I could track him down. Besides, Jessica claimed that all of them took regular camping trips whenever the weather was nice. Dr. and Mrs. Cullen took all of their children up to the mountains for outdoorsy stuff—or so Jessica claimed. Personally, I was wondering if that particular myth about vampires not being able to go outdoors had more legitimacy than I'd originally thought.

After all, I reasoned, why else would a coven of vampires move to Forks, which was one of the wettest parts of the continental United States? And Jessica had said, my very first day here, that they had moved to Alaska, which had just as much cloud cover as Washington did.

Maybe there was a reason why they lived here instead of someplace like Los Angeles or something.

But in any case, there was no reason to put off the trip, plus Charlie said that it was good that I was hanging out with people around here and I should go out and have a good time. So I reluctantly drove down to Jessica's house since I didn't know how to get to La Push and caught a ride with her, Angela, and Lauren.

In the end, I was kind of glad that I went. It had been awhile since I had been to the beach and even though it was still very cold weather, it was nice to dive into the water, feeling at home in the ocean waters.

Truthfully, I would have preferred to stay underwater the whole time rather than go back to the beach, but it would have been suspicious if I stayed underwater for an extensive amount of time, so I emerged much quicker than I would have liked.

"Wow," an Indian kid said, grinning at me as I clamoured back onto the beach, pulling a towel around me. A few of the locals had joined us, enjoying the sunshine. The kid who had spoken was a few years younger than me, maybe fourteen, but had a pleasant, smiling face and a wide, laughing grin. Something about him reminded me forcibly of Percy, but I couldn't put my finger on what exactly. "So you're actually alive? I would have thought that you were drowning, staying underwater that long."

"Was I under there for awhile?" I asked curiously, pushing my wet hair out of my face.

"Yeah . . . almost ten minutes."

"Hmm." I would've thought that I'd have noticed being under there that long, but that's the thing about being a daughter of Poseidon; I don't need to worry about breathing underwater. "It didn't seem like that long."

He laughed, grinning widely and I found myself grinning back. This kid seemed nice enough and had a presence that was friendly and welcoming. I instantly liked him.

"I'm Seth Clearwater," he said, sticking his hand out towards me. "That's my sister Leah over there," he added, rolling his eyes at a girl my age that would have been pretty had it not been for the dark look on her face as she watched another boy, who was a few years older.

"Susan Dawson," I told him.

"Oh, right, Charlie's niece," he said. I must have looked surprised, because he laughed. "Charlie's down here all the time. He's best friends with Billy Black, you know. They usually come down around here to go fishing and stuff."

"Right," I said, remembering. Billy was the former owner of my truck. "Of course. Well, it's very nice to meet you, Seth."

Seth was nice and friendly and immediately began telling me about all of his friends and some of the older kids, pointing them out if they were there. He was surprisingly easy to talk to and I found myself laughing and chatting easily with him, opening up more effortlessly with him than I had with any of the kids at my school—Edward notwithstanding.

As we were talking, I noticed that a lot of the local boys—including Seth—seemed like they were hitting a growth spurt, shooting up like dandelions, getting a lot taller and a lot more muscular than most boys their age were, but Seth's next question put that out of my mind.

"So . . . is it true that you invited Edward Cullen down here?"

I eyed him curiously, frowning. "Where did you hear that?"

"That girl said so," he said, nodding towards Jessica, who was having a good time with Mike. Angela and Ben were in the waves, laughing merrily. Almost everybody that was here had paired off, one by one.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "It's true, but he wouldn't come. Something about it 'not being a good idea for him to be down there.'" I used finger quotations, mimicking Edward's old-fashioned way of talking. Seth laughed, but his eyes had grown serious.

"That's because none of the Cullens are allowed on Quileute land," he explained seriously. "The Council Elders won't allow it because of the treaty."

"What treaty?" I asked.

Seth's shoulders slumped. "I'm not really supposed to say anything about it," he admitted.

"Oh. Well, that's okay, Seth, don't worry about it," I said, although I was disappointed, but I managed to keep it from showing on my face. "I don't want you to get into any kind of trouble with your mom and dad or anybody. Besides, I've got stuff that I can't tell anybody. Believe me, I understand."

"It's just some legend around here, anyway," Seth said, shrugging. "It's pretty cool, but who knows if it's actually true?"

"Take it from somebody who knows, Seth, almost all legends are based on fact," I told him.

Seth was looking around, as though trying to see if anybody was listening. "Okay, just . . . don't tell anybody that I told you," he implored me. I nodded, leaning in closer so that I could hear him more carefully. "Did you know that Quileutes are supposedly descended from wolves?"

"Sure," I said, shrugging. Seth looked surprised. "My friend Annabeth in New York was doing a . . . research paper and she stumbled onto some Quileute legends online and she told me about them."

"Oh." Seth seemed to accept this, nodding. "That's cool. Anyway, there's also some legends about the Cold Ones—" My skin prickled with anticipation at the name, "—and some of these legends aren't that old. In my great-grandfather's time, there was a coven of Cold Ones here. They found them hunting on our lands, but they claimed to be different from the others, so the chief Ephraim Black made a treaty with them. So long as they didn't come onto our lands, then we wouldn't tell people what they really were."

"What do you mean by different?" I asked slowly, trying to hide my thirst for the truth, my hunger for knowledge.

"They weren't dangerous to the tribe," Seth said matter-of-factly. "They claimed that they didn't feed off of humans. Instead, they survived only on the blood of animals. That was another part of the treaty: they weren't allowed to change anyone else or bite a human, otherwise the treaty would be void and it would mean war."

"So . . ." Awareness filled through me. "The Cullens . . . they're the same ones that your ancestors made the treaty with?"

Seth was grinning wildly. "Or so everybody claims," he agreed. "Don't tell Charlie, though, okay? He's already pretty upset with us since some of us won't go down o the hospital anymore, not since Dr. Cullen started working there. I don't mind, though," he added, shrugging. "So long as they're not hurting anybody, does it really matter if they're not human?"

I smiled at him. "Sounds like something that I would say," I said with a chuckle. "And yeah, you're right. Being human isn't about what you are; it's about who you are. It's about the choices that we make that define who we really are."

Seth chuckled. "I like that. Hey, you want to go see the tidal pools?" he asked eagerly. "You probably haven't seen them yet, have you? They're really cool and really pretty."

"Yeah, that sounds neat," I said. Seth jumped off the rock and led me through the woods towards the tidal pools, but my thoughts were on the story that Seth told me.

If it were true . . . then maybe the Cullens weren't as evil as Annabeth insisted. Maybe they were actually good.

_Please, Dad,_ I thought desperately as I glanced towards the sea, following Seth along the path. _Please . . . let them be good._

There was no sign that my dad could hear me, but the waves seemed to wave at me in reply.


	8. The Truth Comes Out

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Eight: The Truth Comes Out

Over the next few days, the sun remained constantly shining, beaming down upon Forks and giving us a few days of perfect weather, making the entire town even more beautiful than it already was. Everything always looks beautiful in the sunshine right after a big rainstorm. Granted, here in Forks, rain is _always_ pouring here, but that's beside the point.

But while my friends were out enjoying the beautiful weather, I kept to my room, trying very hard to work on my report for English and not be distracted by thoughts of vampires that kept sneaking into my head. It was really hard, because every few minutes, Edward kept popping into my brain, making my thoughts near impossible to focus on the report I was supposed to be working on.

Finally, after about thirty something hours, I finally managed to finish the report and keep focused on it long enough so that I could double check it and make sure that there were no spelling or grammar mistakes before I headed outside, letting the sun shine down on me.

Ever since I had gotten back from La Push, I had waited impatiently for Monday to arrive so I could get back to school and confront Edward about what I had found out from Annabeth and Seth.

But that thing about how when you're waiting impatiently for something, time seems to slow to a standstill is actually true. And it's annoying.

So by Sunday, I was getting edgy and agitated, to the point that I needed to do something to get out of the house, so I took my truck and headed out towards Port Angeles. Angela and Jessica, I knew, had plans to go dress shopping for homecoming, so if nothing else, then I could at least meet up with them and walk around with them for a little bit. Besides, there had to be at least a decent bookstore somewhere around here. It was doubtful that they had any books written in Ancient Greek, but it was better than nothing.

Sure enough, almost the first store that I walked into, I ran into Angela and Jessica, who were pawing through the dresses. I accepted the invitation; I liked hanging out with Angela. She was a good friend. And Jessica . . . well, she and I were hardly friends, but I could put up a shopping trip with her.

And anyway, I had gone shopping with Valentine before and compared to her, Jessica was a breeze. No one can shop like Valentine Hart can. She takes the phrase 'shop 'til you drop' to a whole new level. Even some of her sisters—other daughters of Aphrodite—could get exhausted while shopping with her. It's actually kind of fun to watch, us sitting in the food court, nursing our wounds while Valentine is still hard at it, bouncing in and out of stores and attempting to drag us back into them.

And she was really good at constructive criticism when it came to clothes, having a good eye about what would look good on somebody and what wouldn't. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but I actually missed her as I wandered through the one good department store in Port Angeles, picking out a couple of items. My winter wardrobe was still lacking, so I picked out a couple of long-sleeved shirts and a new jacket, since mine was getting a bit worn. Not surprising, considering I'd worn it through a _war_.

"Susan, what do you think?" Jessica asked as I finished buying my purchases and ambled back to where they were sorting through the dresses. She was holding up a vivid pink satin dress to her chest, twirling around in front of the mirror, letting the skirts fly out around her.

"Wow, that looks great," I said, impressed. It looked really good, but she was also one of those girls who were able to look good in pretty much anything, so there wasn't much else I could say. "You should definitely try it on, Jess."

She nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, I think I will," she agreed before pulling up a few dresses that she had lain in a chair beside the mirror, holding them up to me. "Which ones?"

I eyed them carefully. This was the part of shopping trips that I always hated, because I didn't really have that great of an eye for clothes, so my opinion was pretty bland. But the canary yellow one I personally thought was going to look terrible, but the mint green one wouldn't look too bad. And the black one I thought would look really good. It was velvet black with purple satin around the shoulders and waist and down a narrow slit on the side.

"No to the yellow, maybe to the green, and a very strong yes to the black," I said.

Jessica studied my observations carefully. "You're right," she said decidedly. "You've got a good eye for this."

"No," I murmured as she disappeared into the fitting room, leaving Angela and me alone. "My best friend did. And I've got years of experience of shopping with her." Angela chuckled at my comment, laying the lavender dress she'd chosen over her arm.

"Does she still live in New York?" she asked. "Your friend?"

I shook my head dully, my shoulders sagging. "No," I murmured. "No, Valentine died over a year ago. It's half the reason why I moved here. I had to get away from there." Angela was quiet, asking no more questions, to which I was eternally grateful. If it had been Jessica, she would have unleashed a hoard of questions that demanded answers, ones that I might not necessarily want to answer. She should definitely be a reporter, I thought with a wry smile. She definitely was one for poking her nose where it didn't belong and asking questions.

It took Jessica nearly an hour to settle on a dress and by that time, all of us were getting hungry, so we headed to get something to eat—I had long ago borrowed Jessica's cell phone to call Charlie and let him know where I was and that I wouldn't be home for dinner—but even though Jessica and Angela had been through here hundreds of times before, somehow we got lost.

"I don't understand it," Jessica complained. "The restaurant is right through there; why would they move it?" She looked frustrated as she looked around, throwing up her hands. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

"The bus station is over there," I said, pointing towards where I had arrived from New York. "Look, let's go into one of the shops and ask somebody for directions."

Jessica looked extremely frustrated, but Angela said gently, "She's got a point, Jess. It's getting dark out and we don't want to be wandering around in the dark, getting even more lost than we already are."

"Let's go," I said, laying my hand on a door and pulling open, stepping into what looked like a statuary shop. There were a lot of statues around, ranging from animals to satyrs to people.

"Hello?" I called out, marvelling at how lifelike the statues were and how realistic they all were. They looked as though they would pop to life at any given moment, but what I noticed the most was that some of their faces were wrong. They looked scared out of their wits and if I'd known any better, then I would have gotten Angela and Jessica out of there and went to deal with this by myself, but unfortunately, I wasn't that quick.

"Is anybody here?" Jessica said loudly and impatiently. "Look, we need directions, so if anybody's here, could you come out of hiding?"

Still, there was no answer and Jessica gave a groan of frustration. "Okay, nobody's here, let's get out of here," she said firmly, casting a nervous glance around us. "This place gives me the creeps."

She wasn't wrong, I realised. My battle reflexes were flexing, preparing themselves for a fight. There was something otherworldly here.

"Yeah, you guys go try another shop, I'll meet you out there in a little bit," I started to say, turning around, only to find myself standing face-to-face with a woman.

She was very beautiful, I guess, from what I could see of her, which wasn't much, because she wore thick black glasses, covering her eyes, and her hair was wrapped up in a turban, preventing me from being able to see what colour her eyes or hair were. Tall and refined, she wore a black gown that covered everything but her hands.

"What a pleasant surprise," she said in a thick, Middle-Eastern accent that sent shivers travelling down my back. Jessica whimpered and ducked behind me and Angela backed up away from her. Only I remained where I was, though my hand moved to my necklace, fumbling for the chain. "It's so wonderful when young visitors stumble their way here. Are you lost, children?" she asked, giving us a smile that didn't seem to suit her. Jessica bristled at being referred to as a child, but she otherwise kept quiet. "Don't worry, I'll make sure that you get home safely."

"You know what?" I said, taking a deep breath. "We're fine. Just got turned around is all and we really should be going, ma'am." I kept my tone polite and civil, trying to move my friends towards the door, my gaze never leaving the lady, though I caught a glimpse of a statue behind the lady and I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach as I recognised the figure.

Aria.

But it couldn't be . . . and yet, I knew what my eyes were telling me was the truth. The last time that I had seen Aria, she was getting on a bus to head back to San Francisco, to live with her mom last year. But she had never arrived there. Chiron got a call from her mother a week later, only to learn that Aria had never arrived at her destination. The word had gone out and several demigods went out to look for her, but she had never been found.

Until now.

The lady's eyes travelled back towards where I was looking and if it were possible, her smile broadened. "Pretty girl, wasn't she?" she asked maliciously. "She was such a pretty girl, so full of anger and fury. She tried to kill me, you know," she added. "But of course, she opened her eyes at the wrong second and now, she and I will be friends forever. She'll stay with me forever. That's the beauty of eternity, isn't it . . . daughter of Poseidon?"

I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach and I prayed that, even if we made it out of this, that the Mist would be enough to fool my friends.

"How do you know me?" I asked, keeping my voice even and levelled, not betraying the fear that I felt in my body. I had managed to get my necklace off while she was distracted and it was now lying in my hand. All it took was turning it over in my hand and I would have my weapon . . . if only I could get my friends away . . .

She laughed softly and I could have sworn that I heard hissing coming from somewhere nearby, something that sounded like . . . snakes?

"I used to date your daddy," she replied.

This woman was one of my dad's lovers? That wasn't unbelievable; since he's over three thousand years old, then he has had a _lot _of lovers, the latest being Percy's mom and mine, but there was something about her that was telling me that there was something very important about this woman, something that I should _know_.

Jessica was moaning behind me, whimpering as she clutched at my arm and Angela looked absolutely terrified as she shrank back, her eyes fixed upon the lady.

"Run," I hissed at them. "Now, don't stop, don't look back."

"But—" Angela began.

"RUN!" I snapped, more forcibly than I meant to. Angela hesitated only for a moment longer before she grabbed Jessica and bolted, leaving me alone with the lady as she began to move closer to me.

I turned the seashell over in my hand and at once, it began to grow, transforming into a celestial bronze sword. The hilt was bronze, like the blade, but had been fashioned so that it fit in my hand easily and at the very end of the hilt, the seashell that was my necklace was built into the hilt.

"Now, now, little demigod," the lady said as I heard that strange hissing again, coming from right in front of me. "There's no reason for this to get violent, is there? I'm not going to harm you. After all, your daddy and I go way back. I wasn't always like this, you know. Once, I was very beautiful . . . desired by many men . . . courted by many . . . until the Grey-Eyed One cursed me."

Grey-Eyed One . . . at once, everything clicked into place.

The sound of the snakes . . . the reason why her hair and eyes were covered up . . . the fact that she had once been Poseidon's lover . . . and the fact that she had been cursed by the "Grey-Eyed One," which was another name for Athena.

"Medusa," I said, horrified. How was that possible? Percy had killed her over five years ago, when he had first learned that he was a demigod and went on that insane quest to find Zeus's master bolt.

Of course, monsters always resurrect themselves sooner or later, but I didn't think that she would have come back so quickly. I was actually kind of hoping that it would be a couple of hundred years before that happened. Actually, I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with any monsters for awhile, but it looks like my luck just ran out.

Thankfully, though, I wouldn't have to worry about Jessica and Angela. Hopefully, they did as I told them and got out.

Now all I had to worry about was me.

Great.

I threw myself sideways as she began lifting her turban, ripping it away and then the sounds of the snakes increased tenfold as I ducked behind some statues, putting as much distance between Medusa and myself as possible.

"Come out, little demigod," Medusa said invitingly, warm and gentle, not at all threatening. I ducked behind some statues, keeping my gaze fixed towards the ground—or at least only a couple of feet above it. That was fine. As long as I didn't look at her in the eyes, I would be fine. "I'm not going to hurt you. All I want is a picture . . ."

"Susan!"

My head shot up as I recognised Edward's voice, panicked and alarmed. "Edward! Close your eyes!" I screamed at him.

I couldn't see him, but I knew that he was here. My skin was prickling with electricity as I felt his presence nearby.

"Where are you?" he shouted from somewhere within the statuary shop.

"Just keep your eyes closed, all right!" I shouted, panicked.

Medusa hissed. "You protect her, Cold One?"

"And what makes you think that I need protecting?" I yelled at her. "Come and get me. I'm right over here!"

I waved my arm so that she would see me and the second that I heard her pursuit, I began to move, pushing between statues and keeping my gaze towards the ground so that I wouldn't risk being turned to stone.

As I was racing past some statues of children—my heart ached at the mere sight of them—strong, cold hands reached out and grabbed me, pulling me down and I gasped softly in surprise, my gaze automatically looking upward as I found myself staring face-to-face with Edward Cullen, who looked terrified and worried.

"Shh," he whispered. "It's all right, I'll get you out of here. Here . . . where'd you get the sword?" he asked, noticing.

"Not now," I whispered, shaking my head as I looked away from his golden eyes, trying to listen to where Medusa might be. "Can you hear her?" I asked, keeping my voice lowered, hoping that she wouldn't hear us. And I was _praying_ that his hearing was better than mine.

"She's coming," Edward whispered. "Susan, _what is going on_?"

"I'll explain if we get out of this alive," I said in exasperation. "I don't suppose that you have a mirror or anything reflective on you, do you?"

Edward frowned, but fished out his cell phone, holding it out to me and I realised that the back of the phone was reflective and could be used as a mirror. Grasping the cell, I held it out in front of me, trying to see around the statues that we were hidden behind.

"You can't hide forever, little demigod," Medusa said. She was close; I could hear it. "Sooner or later, you won't be able to hide and you can't keep those beautiful eyes of yours closed forever. The temptation is simply too great to resist and then, you will have to look at me. Stay with me, Susan," she said softly. "We get so lonely here . . . stay here with us, daughter of Poseidon."

Next to me, Edward froze and he stared at me, his eyes wide, his mouth opening in surprise. He'd heard what she had called me and there would be no way to get out of this one. But it didn't matter. He knew my secret and I knew his. One way or another, all of the secrets would be stripped away tonight.

Moving a quarter of an inch, I poked the cell phone around the statue and finally caught the glimpse of Medusa in the mirror. She was just like how Percy had described and how all of the stories describe her; snakes where her head should be and piercing eyes that would turn the observer to stone if they even caught a glimpse of her.

But a mirror was fine. I was in no danger of becoming stone by looking at her in the mirror. But what was even better was that I saw something that I could use to my advantage: a fountain standing right behind Medusa, with water spurting out from the top.

"Thank the gods," I whispered. I could feel Edward's golden eyes boring into me, but I didn't have time to answer questions right now. After we got out of this, I would answer any question he wanted, but right now, I had other things on my mind.

Closing my eyes, I stretched out my hand for the fountain, concentrating on the water, plunging into the depths of my power, willing the water to come to lift, to bend to my command.

That was all that it took. The fountain exploded with life and Medusa gave a cry of surprise as she was engulfed by the water, pulling into it and I willed the water to come towards me, bringing Medusa with it. Keeping my eyes lowered to the ground, I waited until it was close enough before I threw myself out of hiding, swinging my sword right through the whirlpool that I had created, straight towards Medusa, decapitating her.

Her head rolled off of her body and I let go of the water, letting it drop onto the ground, making a watery mess out of the shop. Medusa's body dropped down next to where her head was and I let out a deep sight, looking back at Edward.

His eyes were closed even without my telling him.

"You can open up your eyes now," I informed him and his eyelids lifted, revealing his golden orbs as he stood up, walking over to where I was standing next to Medusa's body.

Or what _had_ been her body. It vanished the moment that it had dropped down onto the ground, but the head was still there, though the eyes were closed. I kept my gaze up though as I shrugged off my jacket and carefully placed it over her head.

"Is that . . ." Edward began, then shook his head. "Was that what I _think_ it was?"

"If you're thinking Medusa, then yeah," I said, nodding. Edward stared at me as though he couldn't believe what had just happened, staring down at the sword in my hand before he looked back up to stare at me in the eye.

"Who are you?" he said at last.

"You know who I am, Edward," I told him with a sigh. "But as for _what_ I am . . . well, that's a whole other story, isn't it?" I swallowed before looked back up at him, my blue-green gaze meeting his gold one. "I'm Susan Dawson, demigod daughter of Poseidon. And you are?"

His expression was almost laughable as I watched him. It changed from disbelief to astonishment to incredulity to doubt to bewilderment to wonder before it finally settled on amazement.

"How is that possible?"

"Look, we need to find Jessica and Angela and make sure that they're okay," I said hurriedly. "And then, we'll take my truck and go back to Forks and on the way, I'll explain. After I'm done explaining, I'll answer any questions that you have. But," I added pointedly, "in return, I'll expect _my_ questions to be answered honestly."

To my surprise, he nodded. "Sounds fair," he acknowledged. "It seems that you were right; your secret rivals my own."

It turned out that Jessica and Angela were perfectly fine and the Mist had already affected them. They had absolutely no memory of meeting Medusa or even the little statuary shop that we had been in. They had found the restaurant by now and had already eaten, believing that I had gone off in search of the bookstore and hadn't shown up for dinner.

Sometimes, I really marvel at how well the Mist is at covering up any supernatural activity that humans see.

Since I had brought my truck, I told them that I was going to head home. Charlie would be waiting up for me anyway. Edward hadn't driven here; his sister Alice had dropped him off and he had planned on taking a cab home—at least, that's what he told Jessica and Angela—so I offered to drive him home so we could talk.

Or so I could tell him the truth.

"You said that your father is Poseidon," Edward said as I began driving along the highway, heading towards Forks, keeping a nice, easy speed so it would take plenty of time to get home. "And you called yourself a demigod. As in half-mortal and half-god?"

"Yep," I said, nodding. "My mother _is_ Charlie's sister, just a plain, run-of-the-mill human. But Dad is Poseidon, god of the seas." I rolled my eyes at his expression. "Edward, you've read all of the myths on Greek gods and goddesses, haven't you? What's the one thing that they all have in common? What do all of the Greek heroes have in common?"

"They have a god for a parent," Edward replied immediately, torn between disbelief and incredulity.

"Exactly. That's the most common thing that the gods did in the old stories," I pointed out. "They came down to Earth and had kids with mortals. Did you really think that after a couple of thousand years, they would actually change their habits? All of those myths aren't myths; the gods are real and so are all of those stories. And we all go to this camp—"

"Camp?" Edward interrupted.

"Yeah . . . Camp Half-Blood. It's a training camp for demigods, where we can learn how to defend ourselves against monster and learn how to survive in the outside world where monsters might attack us at any given moment. We learn archery and sword-fighting and basically anything that you can use in a battle. After we turn ten or twelve, the scent of a demigod becomes much stronger and monsters start coming after us. That's when it becomes necessary for us to go to camp, where we'll be safe. Most demigods have to stay at camp because they're too powerful of forces to be able to live in the outside world, but some can live somewhat normal lives during the school year, but they still have to go to camp during the summer holidays. That's where I've been living for the past four years."

"So it wasn't a boarding school."

"No," I sighed. "I just let Charlie think that because it was safer than any other explanation. He doesn't know about any of this and I don't want him to. The last thing that he needs is to get swept up into this." I sighed. "Anyway, I lived there for the past four years, but last year . . . did you happen to hear about all of that stuff that happened in New York?"

Edward nodded, looking concerned. "Yes, there were a series of earthquakes, from what we heard. There was a lot of damage."

"There was no earthquake," I sighed. "What happened was that Kronos, the Titan King, was able to possess a demigod named Luke and almost destroyed Olympus. There was an enormous war there and almost resulted in our destruction, but at the last minute, Luke killed himself to prevent Kronos from taking his full form.

"Those friends of mine that I told you about, the ones who died? They were actually casualties of the battles. All of them were demigods, just like I am. Valentine was a daughter of Aphrodite. Brandon was a son of Apollo. And Peter was a son of Hephaestus. They were killed in battle, trying to stop Kronos and save Olympus."

"But Olympus isn't in New York," Edward pointed out. "It's in Greece . . . isn't it?" he added uncertainly.

"Yes and no," I said. "Yes, because there actually is a Mt. Olympus in Greece and that is where Olympus used to be, but the gods move with the western civilisation. They're half the reason why it exists. Now it's in America, so it's on top of the Empire State Building." I grinned at Edward's expression. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what my face looked like when I found all of this stuff out."

"When was that?" Edward asked carefully.

"When I was twelve. The night that my younger sister was born, I realised that my mother didn't want me. She was tired of me being a danger to her husband and her new daughter, so I ran away. My father was looking out for me, though, keeping watch on me and sent help my way. Eventually, a satyr found me and brought me to camp and I'd been living there ever since. I went back to see my mom last year, but she wouldn't let me past the front door. She wouldn't even open the door."

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that," Edward said softly, looking at me with compassion in his golden eyes. I nodded, keeping the tears at bay. "So . . . monsters find you all the time? Like Medusa?" he asked, saying her name carefully, as though he expected her to show up again. "I thought that she was killed by one of the Greek heroes. Perseus," he said.

"She was. But monsters always resurrected themselves sooner or later," I explained. "They don't really die, so eventually, they come back. My brother actually killed her a couple of years ago, though," I said with a sigh. "I was really hoping that I would never have to meet her. And in answer to your question, yes. Monsters find me all the time. They're attracted to my scent, to my blood. It's the blood of the gods, so they can sniff it out, pick us out from the scent of humans. But the generally leave us alone until we're old enough to do damage, usually around ten or twelve. My brother got there a year before I did. He's a year older than I am."

Edward regarded me carefully. "And your brother? He's . . .?"

"A son of Poseidon, yes," I said, nodding. "I didn't meet him up until four years ago, when I came to camp, after I was claimed."

"Claimed?"

I frowned. "Gods don't always tell their lovers who they are and even if they do, it's dangerous for us to know who our godly parent is before we get to camp, so when they claim us, a symbol appears above our heads. For my father, it was a symbol of a trident. Up until a couple of years ago, there were a _lot_ of unclaimed children. But then my brother saved Olympus and they offered him immortality, to become a god, but Percy made a deal with them instead. He wanted them to promise that there would be no more unclaimed children and that all of the gods would be honoured at camp. Before, there were only twelve cabins," I explained. "One for each of the Olympians, but none of the minor gods had cabins, so their children had to be shoved into Hermes' cabin. Now, all of them have cabins at camp and we're able to spread out."

I have to admit that I wish that I had gotten a picture of Edward's expression, because it was hilarious. Although, I'm pretty sure that mine was pretty laughable too, when I found out that I was a demigod. He was staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes and I think that he was contemplating my sanity, though how I could make all of this up—not to mention the whole thing with Medusa, which he had witnessed—I had no idea. Even a crazy person couldn't make something like this up.

"So . . . how many demigods are there, actually?" he asked dubiously.

"I don't know. There's hundreds in the world, though there's actually not very many like me. I'm a child of one of the Big Three, a child of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Right after World War II, this whole big prophecy came out and they agreed not to sire any more demigod children, so as not to risk the prophecy coming true."

"But then Poseidon had you and your brother?"

"No, actually, Zeus was the first one to fall off the wagon. He had a daughter named Thalia and on her way to camp, she almost got killed, but her dad turned her into a tree," I said, grinning slightly. "Then she got resurrected and joined the Hunters of Artemis, making her immortal and incapable of aging, thus making her fifteen for all eternity. Then Poseidon sired Percy and then me. We're a lot stronger than most demigods and can cause a lot more damage."

"Like what?" Edward asked, curious.

"Like World War II," I deadpanned. "So . . . any more questions?"


	9. The Truth Comes Out, Part II

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Nine: The Truth Comes Out, Part II

I actually felt a little bit sorry for Edward as I glanced sideways at him as we drove along the highway. He was sitting in the passenger's seat, doing a very good impression of a statue, staring ahead of us with his golden eyes filled with disbelief and incredulity, but acceptance was already starting to set in, I noticed. Incredible, it had taken me over a week to accept everything that I had just told him. When I first arrived at camp and Chiron had told me everything, told me what my father was—even though I hadn't been claimed yet—and moved into the Hermes cabin temporarily, I hadn't fully believed what he had told me.

Oh, I knew that what I had seen was real, but there's a big difference between knowing that supernatural stuff exist and accepting that your father, who has never really been involved in your life, just happens to be a very powerful divine being.

All things considered, Edward was handling this surprisingly well, though silence had settled down upon us after I had explained all of this, which I conveniently broke.

"So . . . no more questions?" I asked him. He chuckled, surprising me, and turned his eyes towards me.

"Questions?" he repeated with a wry smile. "I have about a million questions."

"So ask me."

"I hardly know where to begin," Edward murmured. "But I suppose the first one to ask is . . . why you?" I stared in confusion at the question, shaking my head in bewilderment. "Why did you have to be cursed with such a fate? Someone like you should be free to lead a normal, happy life."

"There you go with that 'someone like you' stuff again," I muttered. "Edward, my life might not be the calmest or the safest, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Granted, my mother turned her back on me since before I can remember, my sisters don't even know me, my best friend was killed because an all-powerful being was trying to take over the world, but that's only the bad parts of it. There are good parts too. I've got a brother who would risk everything just to save my life and as annoying and overprotective as he is, that's not such a bad quality. I've got a best friend who would gouge out his own eyes rather than see anything bad happen to me." Edward chuckled. "And I helped save the world. There are some girls who would _kill_ to be able to do something like that. The bad stuff that happens doesn't outweigh the good stuff, because as messed up as my life is, I really wouldn't have it any other way. If I could change my life and be the nice, normal daughter that my mother so desperately craved, I don't think that I would take that chance. Even though the average lifespan of female heroes is about . . . oh, twelve to twenty one, I wouldn't change it. As crazy as it is, I wouldn't change anything about my life."

Edward listened to my tirade without interruption, his eyes softening with every word. "What I wouldn't give to know what you were thinking," he murmured softly. "You've been through so much, yet you still have so much faith. That's something that I admire." He smiled at me. "Now . . . I believe that you have questions for me?"

"Are you sure? I know that I just dumped a lot into your lap," I said, eyeing him carefully. "Finding out that some random girl that you go to school with is a daughter of the Sea God isn't exactly something that you learn every day. I wouldn't be offended if you wanted to sleep on it or something."

He laughed at me, eyes twinkling. "That's all right. I don't mind. Besides," he added seriously, "I can't sleep."

Suddenly, I wished that he had been the one who was driving, because I almost let go of the wheel at that revelation as my head whipped around to stare at Edward incredulously.

"You _what_?" I demanded, my eyes widening. He chuckled at my expression. "What do you mean, you _can't _sleep? How can you _not_ sleep? Everybody has to sleep, how can vampires function without any sleep?" During my rant, I didn't notice that I had let the word slip out. At least, not until it was too late and it was already out in the open.

Edward's golden eyes flashed and he stared at me with true shock written in them. "What did you just say?" he breathed. I swallowed, trying to pay attention to the road and to Edward at the same time. "How? How could you possibly know that? How could you know what I am?"

I took a deep breath. "The first day that I met you, I knew at once that you weren't human. I could sense it, although I wasn't sure exactly what you were. My thoughts ranged from demigods to monsters to minor gods—" Edward's mouth twitched at that last one, like he was trying not to smile, "—but I couldn't exactly do nothing, not with my life being what it was, so I called my friend Annabeth—she's a daughter of Athena—and asked her about it. She said she'd get back to me.

"Then, a few days ago, Annabeth came to visit me. She did every kind of research that she could, trying to find out what it was that I was looking for, and then, finally, she found it. Every piece of the puzzle, everything that I had told her fit together . . . except for one thing," I said, throwing a glance towards his golden eyes, "your eyes."

Edward pulled them away from me, choosing to stare instead outside of the window, into the darkness.

"Annabeth said that vampires traditionally had red eyes instead of gold and she couldn't understand what was different about you and your family, why you had gold instead of red. And everything that she said made perfect sense. You're incredibly fast and strong, your eyes change colour, your skin is pale-white and ice-cold, and you have an accent that suggests that you weren't born or raised in this era," I added quietly. Edward pierced his lips together. "It's not noticeable, but I've been around enough immortal beings to recognise when somebody wasn't raised in this era. You never eat or drink anything, you don't go into the sunlight . . . how old are you, anyway?" I wanted to know. Whatever he said wasn't going to bother me, but I was curious.

"Seventeen," he said at last, his expression rigid and stoic.

I nodded; I had been expecting this answer. "And exactly how long have you _been _seventeen?"

He hesitated, debating whether or not to tell me, but gave in. "Since 1918," he admitted.

I did the math quickly in my head—or at least, trying to, since my skills at math leave something to be desired—and asked, "So . . . you're a hundred and nine?" I sought to clarify.

"Yes," Edward said cautiously, regarding me carefully and vigilantly. The way that he was looking at me was unnerving . . . it was as though he expected me to pull the car over to the side of the road and start running screaming in the other direction.

"So . . . I was right?" I said at last. "You . . . your brothers . . . your sisters . . . your parents . . . you're all . . .?" I didn't finish that sentence, but Edward nodded anyway.

"Are you afraid?" he asked me with a hard note to his voice, one that I didn't completely understand and there was the same hardness in his eyes when I looked into them. He was angry, but not, I realised, at me. Perhaps angry that I had found out his secret, but he wasn't angry at me.

Considering his question, I weighed everything that I had found out over the past few days against everything that I knew about Edward. And I realised that I wasn't, not by a long shot. No matter what Edward was, I knew that he wasn't going to hurt me. He would never hurt me; I was perfectly safe with him and I trusted him with my life.

"No," I answered truthfully, my voice so soft that I doubted that, without vampiric hearing, he would have been able to hear it. "Not by a long shot."

Edward stared at me with an unreadable expression before he looked around at our surroundings. "Pull over," he ordered me.

Something told me that he wasn't fooling around, so I obeyed, pulling the truck over at the side of the road. We were just barely outside of Forks, barely touching the city limits as I climbed out of the truck, Edward with me, and he strode towards the woods. I stared after him, wondering what was going on before I followed him.

"Where are we going?" I asked him curiously, completely thrown by his furious expression. He didn't answer, just continued his power walk through the woods. I had to practically run in order to keep up with his long stride; he was much taller than I was and had much longer legs.

When the road that my truck was parked on had disappeared completely from view, Edward stopped suddenly and grabbed hold of me, swinging me onto his back.

"Edward!" I squeaked in surprise, caught off guard to even think about trying to fight him off. "What are you _doing_—?"

All thoughts went out of my wind as he ignored my questions and broke into a run through the woods, carrying me on my back.

Actually, a run is putting it mildly. The fastest car in the world would have made it seem like walking next to Edward running through the forest. I kept my eyes opened as we raced through the woods, moving quicker than the fastest animal or monster alive. Everything was a blur as we swept through them, faster than a bullet.

My heart was beating so fast that I could feel it pounding against my chest, threatening to explode as Edward carried me through the forest. The only time I had ever been this close to him was the day of the car accident and even then, he had kept our contact minimal. But now . . .

Now I had my arms latched firmly around him so I wouldn't fall off, because at this speed, I was bound to go flying if I fell off. And the contact felt amazing, so pure and strong and unbreakable. The electricity that I always felt whenever I was around him was nothing next to this; now it was a thunderstorm, a hurricane, a tornado, a typhoon.

I could barely breathe. I had to remember how to breathe, tried to focus on my breathing as we ran, forcing air in and out of my lungs, tried to keep my breathing in order so I wouldn't pass out. Edward took no notice of this, just kept a firm grip on me while he raced through the forest.

And finally, he stopped and set me down—albeit gently—onto the ground before proceeding out of the woods, into a small clearing that had beams of moonlight pouring down upon it.

Slowly, I made my way outside of the woods and stared around me in utter amazement, unable to believe what it was that I was seeing, an amazed smile making its way across my face as I slowly stepped further into the clearing, looking in every direction.

The clearing was _beautiful_. There was no other way to describe it. Every inch of it was covered with beautiful purple flowers that emitted a sweet, floral scent. I could hardly believe my eyes; it was so utterly perfect and incredible, almost like a fairy tale.

Looking around towards Edward, I realised that his expression still carried that furious one that he had been wearing since we left the car and my smile slipped away as I looked at him.

"What's wrong?" I asked him carefully.

He let out a laugh of disbelief. "You ask me that? You, who claim to be a daughter of a Greek god, ask me what's wrong? You know what I am, Susan, and you're not afraid of me? Are you insane? Have you completely and utterly lost your mind?"

"No," I said, starting to get angry at him. "Edward, what are you talking about? Why would I be afraid of you?"

"Why shouldn't you be? I'm a monster in every sense of the word, like the kind that searches for you and tries and kill you. You should _hate_ me and want to kill_ me_. I'm a vampire, Susan, a monster by definition and you don't care about that?"

I met his golden gaze evenly and took a step towards him, continuing so until I was standing right in front of him. Lifting my chin, I stared him down. "No," I said forcibly. "I'm not afraid, okay? Edward, listen to me, it doesn't matter—"

"It doesn't matter?" Edward all but exploded and I'm pretty sure that we would be heard all the way in Forks, even though we were about five miles outside of town and all the way up a mountain. "It doesn't matter that I'm not human? It doesn't matter that I'm not a monster? You're not at all concerned with the fact that I drink blood?"

"No," I said, keeping my voice as even and level as I was able. "Because you're not a monster, Edward."

That stopped his tirade and he actually looked at me. "What?" he asked in a much calmer voice, but his golden eyes seemed as dark as the first day that I met him.

"You're not a monster," I repeated, folding my arms across his chest. "I have met a lot of monsters in the past couple of years, Edward. I have looked evil straight in the eye—met one of the most dangerous beings in the universe—and lived to tell the tale. And trust me, you are no monster. A monster wouldn't have rushed to my aid tonight when I was facing Medusa. He would have happily watched her kill me. A monster wouldn't have saved me from that van; he would have just let it crush me. And besides," I added, shaking my head, "being human isn't about _what_ you are, Edward; it's about_ who_ you are. If you were just a monster, you wouldn't care about anything or anybody. You wouldn't have cared about saving my life. You would have just happily watched me get myself killed."

Edward pierced his lips together. "Maybe I knew that if your blood was spilled that day, we wouldn't have been able to restrain ourselves. Maybe I just didn't want our secret to get out."

"Maybe," I allowed. "But a monster wouldn't have cared about that. And humans have the extraordinary ability not to see supernatural activity and convince themselves that something perfectly normal took place. If you hadn't saved me and you lost control, there's a good chance that most of them would have forgotten what they saw by the next day." Edward had nothing to say to this. "Besides, I saw you that day; you didn't care whether or not anybody saw you when you saved me. It didn't matter whether or not somebody saw you push that van off of me. It didn't matter."

Taking a deep breath, Edward looked away, his hard look softening slightly. "No," he whispered. "No, it didn't. I didn't care who saw that day. All I cared about was getting you to safety. Later, I came up with the excuse that none of us would have been able to resist had your blood been spilled, but at the time, all I cared about was saving your life."

"See?" I said not unkindly. "Not many people would have risked their lives—or their secret, for that matter—to help a complete stranger. I can only think of a handful and most of them don't even live in this town," I added in an attempt to get him to smile, but it didn't work.

"And my diet?" he asked harshly. "You're not concerned about that?"

"Edward," I said seriously, gently touching his face and guiding it so that he was forced to look at me, "you won't hurt me, okay? You've had plenty of opportunities to hurt me and you haven't. Besides, I just took down a lady who can turn people into stone with one glance. I can control water and have wicked sword-skills. Trust me, I _can_ take care of myself." His mouth twitched slightly, but otherwise remained expressionless. "Defending myself against mythological creatures? That's the easy part. I've trained for four years for it. It's just the normal life part that I . . . don't have down yet."

His eyes softened at that, his mouth loosening from its tight, rigid position, and his entire body relaxed slightly.

"I'm not afraid of you, Edward," I assured him. "And I'm not going to ask about your diet. Not unless you want to tell me."

"No, you should know," he said quietly. "The worst part about my family and I is over now." He took a deep breath as he looked at me. "My family . . . we're different from others of our kind. That's why our eyes are gold instead of red. Your friend was right about that. We only hunt animals." I nodded, even though Seth had already told me as much, not interrupting. "But being around you . . . I haven't been around humans in so long, Susan, and I'm not entirely certain that I can control myself. I've lived amongst humans, spent almost a hundred years around them, but I haven't actually interacted with humans since I was changed. You don't seem to understand how dangerous I am."

"Because you've had more than enough opportunities to hurt me, Edward," I said patiently. "And I'm just as dangerous as you are. My own mother rejected me just because of the danger that I brought to her and her new family. What do you think that says about me?"

Edward paused without a trace of the fury that had been lingering behind his golden eyes since we had started talking; all of the anger that had been lingering was gone now. "I think," he said after a long moment, "that it says more about your mother than it says about you."

Looking up at him, I felt my hands moving on their own accord, reaching out and taking his slightly larger hands into mine, lacing our fingers together. Although I was unable to tear my gaze away from his, I noticed that they were a perfect match for one another; they fit together all so perfectly, as though my hands had been made for his. They were the perfect size for each other, matching each other's without any need for adjustment, as though we had been created for one another.

And the way that my skin prickled when he was touching me . . . it left me with a desire that I never wanted to be quenched. A desire for this feeling that was growing within me to never disappear. Every particle of my body was singing in happiness and joy just by our hands touching one another's, by looking into each other's eyes, by simply being around each other.

Taking a deep breath, Edward swallowed as he stared down at our entwined hands, as though marvelling at how perfectly made they were made for one another. "This is impossible."

I managed a chuckled. "Says the vampire who sustains on an animal diet while he standing in the middle of the woods with the demigod daughter of Poseidon," I said cheerfully.

That got him to laugh and it wasn't until that moment that I realised that I'd never heard Edward laugh before. I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the sound; it was full of delight and mirth.

With a soft chuckle, I shook my head as I looked up at him. "Edward, I'm not some helpless, weak little girl, all right? I _can_ take care of myself if you wanted to hurt me, which I don't think that you do. I told you once before that I don't think that either one of us wants to stay away from each other. We should just see where this goes."

Edward closed his eyes for a moment before taking a step closer to me, closer than we'd ever been before. "You're right," he finally said after a long moment, "this isn't going away and as much as I try to deny it, I can't stay away from you anymore. And I don't want to stay away from you. You fascinate me in ways I never could have imagined. Your strength, your courage, your faith, your compassion . . . you've bewitched me, Susannah Dawson," he said, using my full name, which people rarely use. Only my dad, on occasion, and Chiron, sometimes, when I'm in trouble. "You've awakened something in me that I thought was long gone. My humanity," he said with a hint of wonder.

"Edward . . ." I whispered.

I'm not sure which one of us moved first; it could have been either of us or we both could have moved at the same time. I don't think that we'll ever know for sure who started it.

All I know for sure was that one minute I was looking straight into his golden eyes and the next minute, my lips were pressed against his in a soft, chaste kiss that nonetheless captured all of the passion and fire that I had felt inside of my dreams. For the first time in my life, I felt fire instead of water building up inside of me.

It was my first kiss and it was perfect.

And it was much too quickly.

Slowly, Edward pulled back, ending the kiss with a wondering, awestruck look on his face. I could barely control the emotions that were building up inside of me, a series of emotions that I couldn't even begin to describe or express. I was melting . . . I was melting in a pool of absolute perfect happiness.

"Wow," I whispered, a soft laugh making itself known. "That was . . ."

"Incredible," Edward murmured, dazed as he looked down at me, studying me carefully. And then he swept me up and captured me in another soul-searing kiss that held none of the restraints that our first one had held.

His arms were wrapped protectively around me, holding me in place, but not so tight that he would hurt me. My arms moved around his neck as he kissed me, my hands moving through his already messy hair, weaving themselves through the bronze tresses.

I was exploding, I was fireworks on the Fourth of July, I was the Christmas tree in Times Square, I was a comet soaring through the night sky, radiating clear for the whole world to see . . .

The second kiss lasted much, much longer, but unfortunately, I have to breathe, which meant that it eventually had to end and I had to come up for air, forcing me to pull apart.

Edward was staring at me in enthralment before he took a deep breath. "I should take you home," he said albeit reluctantly as he took my hand, leading me back down the moment, but he obviously wasn't in too much of a hurry, because he didn't pick me up and use his vampire speed to carry me back down.

"What is this place, anyway?" I asked him, looking over my shoulder.

"Just someplace I like to come to whenever it's nice out," Edward replied with a smile. Seeing my reluctance to leave, he smiled and lowered his head so he could whisper in my ear. "We'll come back. The next time it's nice out, I'll bring you and show you what I look like in the sunlight."

"Really?" I asked, a smile spreading across my face. Edward laughed at my eagerness, nodding. "So I'm guessing that whole 'vampires burn in the sun' thing is just a myth?"

"Yes," he said, nodding. "Sunlight doesn't bother us; we can come out during the daytime, but we just can't come out where anybody can see us. People would know that we're different."

"I think that memo went out a long time ago."

He chuckled again as we began the long track down the mountain, our hands entwined in one another's.

"Edward, can I ask you something?" I asked as we finally reached the truck. He nodded. "How did you know where I was tonight? How did you find me in Medusa's shop? Did you follow me or something?"

For a moment, he was quiet and then he released a sigh. "Like I said," he said so quietly that I almost didn't hear him, "you've bewitched me. Susan, I feel very protective of you. And I was . . . worried that something might happen to you tonight. I could . . . feel it, if that makes any sense. So I kept a close watch out for you and your friends and then, when you went into that shop, I heard Jessica and Angela's panicked thoughts and I—"

"Wait . . . what?" I stared at him. "Did you just say that you heard their_ thought_?" Edward just looked at me, a wry smile in place. "So . . . you can . . . read minds?"

Considering me carefully, Edward opened up the driver's side door for me, being a perfect gentleman and helped me climb into the seat. "I can read every mind that I have ever come across," he answered simply. "Every person that I've ever met, vampire or human, I've always been able to read. But the first demigod that I meet, the first half-human girl that I've ever come across, I'm left in the dark on your thoughts."

I looked at him dubiously. "You can't read my mind?" I asked. "Is that . . . do you think that's a demigod thing or . . . can you just not read mine?"

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe both, maybe one or the other. I don't know. You're the first demigod that I've ever met before, Susan. I honestly have no idea if it's just the demigod part of you that makes it impossible to read your mind or something else entirely. That's partly why I was ignoring you that very first day, when we met. I didn't know what was happening, why I couldn't hear you. But it was also because just like you knew that I wasn't human, I knew that you were different. You were human, I could tell, your scent was enough of a human's for me to know that you were at least part human, but I wasn't sure what else you were."

I studied him carefully. "Do you mind? Being unable to read my mind?" I asked him.

He paused. "At the beginning, I did," he acknowledged. "It frustrated me that I couldn't know what you were thinking, but the more that I got to know you, the more that I began to understand you, the more I was glad that I couldn't read your mind. It was strange, not knowing what you were thinking, but it's a nice change. It's quite when I'm around you. Peaceful," he added with that same crooked smile that made me melt.

Although I didn't know what to think of the whole being a mental mute thing, I was also kind of relieved by it. First boyfriends are tough enough without having to deal with the fact that they can also read your mind whenever they want. At least this way, he couldn't hear any thoughts that I didn't particularly want him to hear (AKA, the passionate dreams that I had where he played a feature role).

"Come on," Edward said softly as he closed the door and walked around to the passenger's seat. "It's getting late and I don't want Charlie to worry and send out a search party."

"Uh . . . you know, I have no idea where you live," I pointed out. Edward just chuckled.

"Don't worry about me," he assured me. "I can get home."

Considering that he had just carried me up a mountain in the space of about a minute and wasn't even winded, I don't know why I was even surprised by the comment as I turned on the engine and began to navigate my way into Forks, heading towards my house.

"Charlie's inside," Edward observed as we pulled up to my house. "You should probably get in, before he starts a search party. Jessica called him awhile ago to tell him that you were with me." He smiled. "Just tell him that I got stranded in Port Angeles and you were giving me a ride home."

"No problem," I sighed. "Charlie can be completely oblivious to falsehoods. He's completely swallowed my stories about my being in a boarding school and my dad being a seaman."

Edward smiled and gave me one last, chaste kiss. "Good night," he said softly. "I'll pick you up tomorrow for school."

Before I could comment—not that I was sure what I was going to say, anyway—he was gone, disappeared from view, and I took a deep breath, picking up my belongings as I climbed out of the car, heading up the steps and into the house, where, sure enough, Charlie was sitting in front of the television with the game on, waiting for me.

"Wondering where you were," he said gruffly. "Jessica called about a half hour ago for you. Weren't you supposed to meet up with her?"

"Yeah, I did," I said truthfully. "I hung out with her and Angela for a little bit, then I ran into Edward Cullen. He got stranded there, so I offered to give him a ride home."

"Oh." Charlie looked surprised. "That was nice of you." He paused, studying me carefully and I wondered if he could tell if I'd just had my first kiss. "Which one is Edward?" he asked carefully. "Not that big one, right?"

"No, that's . . . Emmett, I think," I said, trying to remember. "Edward's the youngest one, the redhead."

"Oh, right." Charlie nodded as though this satisfied him. "Well, it's getting pretty late, you should probably get to bed, you've got school tomorrow."

"Right. Good night, Uncle Charlie," I said as I climbed up the stairs, disappearing into my bedroom and donning my nightgown before I climbed into my bed. The night's events had taken its toll on me and I was out before my head hit the pillow.

But in the few seconds before I was out, three things became certain in my mind.

One: Edward was a vampire.

Two: while we lived two completely different lives, we were two halves of a single whole.

And three: I was inexplicably and irrevocably in love with him.


	10. Ghostly Warnings

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Ten: Ghostly Warnings

When I woke up the following morning, rain was pattering against the window and there was the promise of thunderstorms on the horizon, but considering that we'd just had four days of perfect weather, it wasn't such a bad trade-off. And besides, cloudy weather meant that it was guaranteed that I was going to see Edward.

The moment that he entered my thoughts, I sat up straight in bed, remembering his parting words from the following evening.

And so did all of the memories of the previous evening. Edward finally admitting the truth about what he was . . . my telling him about demigods . . . fighting Medusa . . . and the worst part of last night, finding out that one of my oldest friends was dead.

Granted, Aria and I hadn't been on speaking terms for almost a year, but I still cared about her and still cared about what happened to her. And now she was dead and I never even got the chance to beg her forgiveness for what had happened with Peter and Stefan.

I sighed as I glanced at the clock; it was only seven o'clock, but it was later in New York time, so Chiron was undoubtedly already up.

Suppressing a sigh and wishing to the gods that I didn't have to make this phone call, I picked up my phone and began dialling the number for camp.

On the third ring, someone answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, this is Susan Dawson," I said, curling up into my pillow. "Is Chiron around? Can I talk to him? Thanks," I said as the nymph on the other end scampered away to get the Activities Director at camp who was sort of like a second father to me. He'd always been there whenever I needed him.

"Susan?" Chiron asked the moment that he answered the phone. His voice was worried. "Is everything all right?"

"No, it's not," I said, taking a deep breath. "Chiron, I've got some bad news. I found Aria."

His sharp intake of breath told me that this was probably the last thing that he had expected when he answered. "Aria? That's . . . quite unexpected," he said. I bit my lip, tears starting to form in my eyes as I tried to form the words to tell him what had happened. "I take it that you did not find her alive."

That's the thing about having a teacher who's over three thousand years old; there's not much that surprises him. "No," I said sadly. "Last night, I was in Port Angeles and I stumbled upon Medusa's lair. I found Aria there, turned to stone."

Chiron sighed. "That must have been difficult for you. How are you holding up?"

"I should have told her that I was sorry," I whispered, blinking back tears. "I should have begged her forgiveness last year, but I thought that there would be more time, I thought that . . . I didn't think that she would forgive me so soon afterwards. I figured that she needed some time and when I saw her again, things would have settled down enough for her to accept my apology."

"You had nothing to be sorry for, my dear," Chiron told me gently. "I told you once before that you had a choice to make and no one else could have made it for you. If you had made a different choice then, if you had killed Stefan, yes, perhaps you could have saved Peter's life, but you also would have been haunted your entire life by that choice. Stefan was your friend and whether he betrayed you or not, there was still a chance that he could have been redeemed. You wanted to give him that choice."

"I hate him, Chiron."

"Now, child," Chiron said reprimandingly. "Hate is a very powerful emotion and you should not invoke it unless you are sure that you feel that strongly for him. It's a cliché, but there is a very fine line between love and hate."

I sighed; as always, he sounded exactly like a teacher—which he sometimes disguised himself as when he's watching over a potential demigod—and I couldn't argue that he was right, but I also remembered the last time I had seen Stefan Dalloway, at Olympus right after the final battle, when he had been banished for his crimes.

He vowed vengeance against me, told me that he wouldn't forget the part that I played in his banishment, and that he would make me pay for this, even if it took all eternity.

"In any case, you sound much better than when you left here," Chiron said approvingly. "I take it, then, that living with your uncle isn't all that you dreaded it to be?"

"No, Forks is actually much better than I expected," I admitted. "And I'm happy here."

"Good girl," Chiron told me and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Now, I'm sure that you need to get to school and I have a very unpleasant call to make to Aria's mother," he said with a sigh. I frowned sympathetically; I never thought about how hard it had to be, to watch heroes die so tragically when he was the one training them. And he always had to be the one to tell their mortal parent that they had lost their child. "Take care, Susan. And be careful," he added cryptically.

I sighed. "Annabeth told you?"

"She didn't need to," Chiron replied with a chuckle. "When you get to be as old as I am, my child, there isn't much that you don't know about. I've met the Cullens quite a few times, though they never realised who I was, not that they would have believed it. That's the funny thing about immortal creatures," he added. "We're so willing to believe in our own kind that we completely dismiss the idea that some legends might actually be true. But you needn't worry, child. You're quite safe with them."

"Thanks," I sighed. "Chiron, do you by any chance know if being a demigod blocks forms of mind-reading? Say, if there's somebody who can read minds, but they can't read demigods?"

"No," Chiron said immediately. "If that were the case, then it would be simply because a demigod possesses the latent ability to shield themselves from such an ability and it would not be limited to mind-reading. It would depend on the person, per se, and depending on their own strengths and weaknesses, they would be able to shield themselves from certain types of abilities. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes," I said with a sigh, "and no." Chiron laughed.

"Well, don't worry, you'll understand one day. Be a good girl, Susan."

"Since when am I anything but?"

"Shall I answer that question or just look stern?" Chiron inquired. I laughed, glancing a the time; if I wanted to get to school in time, I definitely needed to get a move on. "Well, I'll talk to you soon, Susan. And I'll see you next summer," he added.

"Bye, Chiron," I said, hanging up the phone before glancing towards the window, half-expecting Edward to be standing outside with his car, but there was no silver car in sight, nor mind-reading vampire.

Frowning slightly and wondering if he had forgotten, I climbed out of bed and dressed quickly in the cool autumn air, donning a long-sleeved blue shirt, blue jeans, and tugging the new jacket that I'd bought last night as I headed down to breakfast. Charlie was already gone, so I just poured myself a bowl of cereal and put my bowl in the dishwasher before grabbing my backpack and headed out the door, stopping dead in my tracks.

As though he had magically appeared, Edward was leaning against his car, waiting patiently for me. "Good morning," he greeted with that smile that send my heart racing.

"Morning," I returned, giving him a smile back.

"How'd you sleep?" he asked as he opened the door and I slid into the passenger's seat.

"Not too bad," I replied. "How about you?"

His mouth twitched at the joke. "It was a very . . . interesting night," he replied, his golden eyes amused.

"Mm-hmm. Interesting how?" I asked with a mischievous smile. Edward just smiled back at me.

"I think you know how."

With a soft chuckle, I relaxed in the seat as he began pulling out of my driveway, leaving my truck there for anyone to see, and began navigating his way towards the school. Within a second, I was very glad that I had my seatbelt on, because he was a very speedy driver. The sights of Forks went by and if I so much as blinked, I missed an entire street, but it wasn't until I glanced over at the dashboard that I realised that we were going over eighty miles an hour, which was twice the speed limit in Forks.

"What are you in such a hurry for?" I asked.

He glanced at the speedometer, then back at me, shrugging. "I always go this fast," he explained with a shrug. "Now, if you don't mind, I have some more questions for you."

"I kind of figured that you might. Go ahead, I'm ready."

"Oh, I've fully accepted the demigod part of you," Edward said with a roguish smile. "I'm more interested in _you_, though, than about the demigod part of you."

Turning bright red, I looked down at my hands. "I'm not that interesting."

"Everything that I see says different." Edward reached out and touched my cheek with infinite tenderness, sending a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with his cool hand and everything to do with the fire that exploded through me at his touch.

Ducking my head in slight embarrassment, I said, "Okay . . . what do you want to know?"

"What's your favourite colour?"

I hadn't been expecting _that_. I don't know what I was expecting, but certainly something more than_ that_. "Um . . . blue and green. It alternates."

"Just like your eyes," he said softly. I glanced at him, startled, and he smiled slightly. "Sometimes they appear to be more green and sometimes they look more blue. Like the sea," he murmured, his topaz eyes light and teasing. "Temperamental and ever-changing."

"The sea doesn't like to be restrained," I reminded him. "Why should the daughter of the Sea God be any different?"

With an amused smile, Edward nodded in agreement. "What's your favourite kind of music?"

"Mostly classical stuff," I admitted. "But my friend Annabeth got me some Caribbean CDs for my last birthday and I really liked those. I've been listening to those mostly, but I do like some rock music. I think that the Backstreet Boys are the greatest boy band ever to grace the music world, but Gavin Degraw has some good stuff, too."

"_I Don't Wanna Be,_" Edward said, chuckling.

Shaking my head, I corrected, "_We Belong Together._ Fifty years from now, it'll still be a classic," I said with fierce determination.

Edward's mouth twitched as he pulled into the school, next to a bright red convertible that his siblings were getting out of. Only Alice gave me a friendly smile and wave, which I returned.

"So question, why is Alice the only one of your siblings that can stand the sight of me?" I asked him as we headed towards the school.

Edward sighed. "It's complicated. Alice . . ." He paused, not continuing that particular thought. "For the most part, we tend to stay away from humans, only interacting with them when we have to. It's dangerous to be so close to one, half-human or no."

"But it's not like I'm gonna burst your secret out to Forks. Besides, most of them aren't going to believe me even if I did," I pointed out.

"You'd be surprised," Edward murmured with a sigh. "In any case, Alice has been the most supportive of this." Something in his tone made me think that there was more that he was saying and I frowned slightly, trying to consider what he might be concealing, but before I could think too much on it, I noticed as we were walking towards the door that there were quite a few people staring at us.

Embarrassed by the attention I was getting, I ducked my head. "What are they thinking?" I whispered to Edward, who chuckled.

"Quite a few of your admirers are thinking up . . . rather imaginative ways to kill me," he answered, his golden eyes twinkling. "And some of the girls are quite incredulous. They're wondering how you managed to 'sink your claws into me'." He grinned slightly. "By the way, Jessica is planning to ambush you during history."

"Wonderful," I complained. "Don't people around here have their own lives to gossip about?"

"The new girl in town, niece of the Chief, getting involved with one of the reclusive Cullens? You can't expect teenagers not to talk about this," Edward said consolingly. "Actually, most of the town's going to be talking about this, so you probably better prepare yourself."

"How long until this blows over?" I asked, wincing.

"Offhand, I'd say another twenty years."

And the worst part about his comment was that he was probably right, I thought, trying to ignore the attention as we entered into the building.

Ever the gentleman, Edward walked me to class, not bothered with getting to his own on time—though I suspected that he could get there without even being late—questioning me all the way about my favourite books, movies, places that I'd been to, which led to an explanation about some of the quests that I've been on, including one where I had to go to San Francisco. There was a monster there who was about to escape from its prison and it could only be killed by a child of Poseidon. Since Percy was currently in the Sea of Monsters at the time, it was up to me to take care of it. It was the first mission that I ever went on.

As Edward had promised, Jessica practically jumped on me the second that I set foot into history, grabbing hold of my arm and hauling me over to my usual seat, pushing me down into and looking at me with excited, anticipated eyes, demanding answers.

I answered them as best I could, but Jessica is one of those people who won't give up until they get the answers that they want. Since I had been there with her last night and Edward had shown up with me after I had conveniently disappeared—thankfully, she had no remembrance of Medusa or what had happened in her lair—she wanted to know if we were having a date or something, but I assured her that it wasn't it, giving her the same lie that I'd delivered to Charlie; we'd met up and he'd gotten stranded, so I offered to give him a ride home. But she seemed better able to see through my lies than Charlie, though, and suspected that I was holding something back, though I doubted even she would ever figure out the truth.

She bugged me about my relationship with Edward, wanting to know how I felt about him. And the words left my mouth before I could stop them.

"I really like him. He's . . . different than any boy that I've ever known. It's like he looks at me and really sees me, you know? Right down into my soul. And honestly . . . whenever I'm around him, I completely forget about all of the bad stuff that's happened to me. He just makes it . . . all go away and it drifts off into space, disappearing to a place where I can't find it. He's my lifeline," I said with a soft laugh.

Jessica's eyes had grown very huge at my confession and her mouth formed in a "O." "Wow," she said in obvious incredulity, soft and amazed. "Edward _Cullen_." She sighed enviously. "You're so lucky. I would kill to have a boyfriend who looks like that. Of course, his brothers aren't too shabby either."

"Looks aren't everything, Jess," I said, insulted. "In fact, I would find him interesting if he looked like the Creature From the Black Lagoon." She gave me an incredulous look. "It's something more than that. It's real."

She just gave me a funny look, as though I were completely out of my mind, but shrugged and began pestering me about what we had talked about on the ride home. I tried to find something truthful that we had talked about, but unfortunately, nothing that we talked about I could tell Jessica, so I just told her that we talked about school and our families and stuff. This seemed to satisfy her, since—after the teacher turned around to scold her—she faced the front of the room and paid attention to the lesson.

Classes had never dragged by so slowly and when lunch finally came and I left my art class, Edward was waiting outside, leaning against the wall easily as though he had been waiting for me all the time. Angela gave me a knowing look as she walked passed me.

"I'll see you later, Susan," she said, leaving to head to the cafeteria.

"Bye," I said, watching her go, disappearing into the mass of students that were heading for lunch, before I turned towards Edward, who pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on and fell into step next to me. "Hi," I said with a smile.

"Hello," he said, returning the smile as we moved with the crowd, joining the crowd. "How was history?" he asked innocently.

I gave him an annoyed look. "You know, you could have warned me what she was going to ask."

"Why would I do that?" he said, still smiling. "Maybe I was just as interested in those answers as she was." The comment caught me completely off guard and I slowly turned to look at him as I joined the line; I'd forgotten to pack a lunch this morning. Not surprisingly, considering the events of the last twenty-four hours.

"You can hear from that far away?" I demanded in a low hiss. Edward chuckled at my expression, his wide smile giving away his answer and I groaned in embarrassment, turning a violent shade of red, which only made him laugh harder.

"You're so adorable when you blush," he said, lifting my chin to prevent me from looking away.

"Stop it," I implored him. "Stop looking at me like that or everybody's going to start gossiping more than they already are."

Edward surprised me with his next remark. "Let them," he told me before he kissed me, without a care in the world.

I responded to the kiss, returning it wholeheartedly and unexpectedly, allowing myself to get wrapped up in the kiss until he pulled away.

"Too many spectators for that kind of behaviour," he said, half-scolding me and I gaped at him, half-furious with him and half-astonished. His golden eyes were twinkling as he moved along the line, towards the cashier. "I've got hers, too," he said, nodding towards me.

"You're unbelievable," I muttered as I followed him to an empty table and depositing my tray onto it. "Why exactly were you listening in?"

He sighed. "I told you, I wanted to hear the answers as much as she did," he replied. "It's not something that I'm used to, not knowing what's going on inside someone's head. And I wanted to know what you were thinking."

"You could have just asked me. I would have told you."

"Maybe, but you wouldn't have been so honest with your response with me as you were with her."

"I didn't mean to tell her that," I said, stealing a glance towards Jessica, who was undoubtedly telling the rest of her friends what I had said to her. "She probably thinks I'm crazy."

"So you didn't mean it?" he asked me in a soft voice. I looked at him, straight into his golden eyes, locking them with my own, and it took me a full minute to reply.

"Don't be ridiculous," I managed to say. "Of course I meant it." A soft expression moved into place and I swallowed. "It's the whole girls falling for superheroes thing, you know. So far, you're the only guy whose ever thrown himself in front of a moving vehicle for me." Edward smiled, his golden gaze deeply amused. "I meant everything that I said."

"Everything?"

"Everything," I promised. "So much stuff happened in New York, Edward, and there were times when . . . I never thought I would get past it. I thought that I would be the depressed, rundown girl forever. But ever since I met you, it's like you reached into that darkness and pulled me to safety. I'm not lost anymore. I'm not the sad little girl who lost her best friend and most of the people that she cared about. You brought me back to life," I said breathlessly, shaking my head. "And that is something that I thought nobody could do."

Edward listened to my speech without interruption, his expression becoming unreadable with every word. When I was finished, he just studied me intensely.

"It seems that I've greatly underestimated you," he said quietly. "I didn't anticipate your feelings would be just as strong as mine." He sighed. "Being around you . . . it makes me feel more alive and more human than I have felt in many, many years." He touched my cheek tenderly, sending an electric current down my spine. "You're warm," he murmured and I don't think he meant my temperature. "And you care about people and despite all that you have suffered, you are still willing to help people. You make me forget what I am." I was speechless and even if Edward hadn't still been holding my face, preventing me from moving it, I doubt I would've been capable of movement. "Am I making you uncomfortable? I'm sorry."

"No," I said, my voice weak with emotion. "Edward . . . that's . . . that's the sweetest thing that _anyone_ has ever said to me." He smiled at that, reaching across the table and entwining our hands together, studying them carefully, as though marvelling how utterly right they fit together.

"So . . . this Saturday?" he asked. It took me a minute to remember what this Saturday was; the homecoming dance. After everything that had happened, it had completely slipped my mind, along with the lie that I'd told to get all of my admirers off of my back. "I was just wondering if you really had a visitor coming from out of town or if that was just some excuse that you were using to rid yourself of all your unwanted suitors."

"What do you think?" I asked, giving him a look. "I don't know if you've noticed, but guys don't tend to take no for an answer, so I had to come up with some excuse."

Edward smirked. "I suspected as much. Just for curiosity's sake, would you turn me down if I asked you?"

"No, probably not," I admitted. "But I . . . I've never actually gone to a dance before. I don't really know how to dance, so . . ."

"Hmm." Edward scrutinised me. "Well, I could teach you, if you like," he offered. "It's not hard. You just need a strong male lead."

"Oh and you're the perfect male lead for the job, right?" I teased. "Okay, sure, that sounds fun."

"Good." He sounded placated. "Of course, if you'd rather, we could go to a movie or something."

"We could . . . but you'd like to go to the dance, wouldn't you?"

He frowned, not immediately rejecting my observation. "I think it would be nice, yes. And it wouldn't hurt for you to do something normal. It might actually be fun."

Edward looked too eager that I couldn't say no. And I had to admit that going to the dance with the one guy that I actually _wanted_ to go with didn't sound so bad.

"I don't have a dress," I admitted.

"Alice will take care of that. She never misses an opportunity to go shopping," he said with a laugh. "She rarely even lets any of us wear the same outfit twice. It would be a fashion catastrophe to her." I giggled. "I'll ask her to get you something. Of course, knowing her, she's probably already has something in mind."

"What do you mean, knowing her?"

"I'm not the only one in my family with gifts," he said seriously. "Alice can see the future and her husband Jasper, he can feel and manipulate emotions."

"Wow," I muttered.

"So don't worry, I'll take care of it. All you have to do is show up and I'll teach you how to dance."

"Sounds perfect," I said shyly just as the bell rang and I looked up, startled at the sound. While I was with Edward, I completely forgot that time even existed, so the sound brought me on a bumpy ride back down to earth.

Chuckling at my expression, Edward offered me his hand. "Come on, I'll walk you to math."

"How is it that you know my schedule?" I asked, walking over to where we dumped our trays at. If I hadn't been looking towards Edward at that moment, I never would have seen her.

Standing outside of the cafeteria, I saw someone standing there, looking directly at me . . . a very familiar someone.

She was tall and slender, holding herself with ease, long golden blonde locks tumbling around her, bouncing off of her shoulders with every step she took and her bangs framed a beautiful face and sky-blue eyes.

"Susan?" Edward asked, noting my expression. He glanced towards where I was looking at, before looking back at me. "What's wrong?"

I held up my finger, the universal sign for "wait" before I moved around him, swinging my backpack onto my shoulder as I slipped outside, towards the girl, but she had turned around the corner.

When I finally caught up with her, in the parking lot, she had stopped and turned around to face me.

"Valentine?" I whispered.

But Valentine didn't hear me; or at least, she didn't seem to. She just looked at me before her mouth opened and she spoke.

"Prepare yourself, Susan. There is a danger headed your way, in the form of a half-blood who is now something else. You will know him when you see him." Her voice sounded exactly the same, yet somehow, it was completely different. It sounded . . . ethereal now, as though it were coming from very far away. Which it was, considering she was in Elysium now.

"Val, what do you mean?" I whispered, my heart clenching with sudden fear and apprehension. Ghosts never seek anyone for no good reason; they usually want something and usually, it's revenge. The only time I'd ever heard of one giving a warning was Bianca, daughter of Hades, trying to aid her brother in his time of need.

But Val, it seemed, was not interested in revenge and even if she was, I couldn't imagine why she'd want revenge against me. I had been on the other side of the battlefield with Briar, trying to fight off a couple of dragons. Valentine had been fighting off some hellhounds and unfortunately, her battle skills were not as good as they could have been.

Rather than answer me, Valentine just looked at me before she stepped sideways into the shadows, vanishing from sight.


	11. Quileute Visitors

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Eleven: Quileute Visitors

Edward pulled up next to my house and shut his car off, looking directly at me. We hadn't talked the whole way home and barely spoke through Science, after I told him about Valentine and the cryptic message that she had given me. I don't know what he was thinking, but I was trying to figure out what she meant by that.

It didn't make any kind of sense. A half-blood who is now something else? What on earth could that be? Once a demigod, always a demigod, isn't that the way it goes? How and why would one become something else?

"Do you know what she meant by that?" Edward said at last, finally breaking the silence and looking sideways at me.

"I don't know," I said with a sigh. "I tried to ask her, but . . . she didn't say anything else, she just disappeared." Suppressing a sigh, I leaned my head back, looking back at him. "It doesn't make any sense. If you're a half-blood, that's something that you were born with, you don't just become something else."

"She said something about danger heading towards you, right?" Edward asked to clarify.

"Yeah," I said, my hand tightening around my necklace, reassuring myself that it was still there. Danger didn't really frighten me; I've spent my whole life in it. But if Valentine was warning me about it, it had to be bad.

Suddenly, Edward reached over and touched my chin gently, forcing me to look at him. "We're going to figure this out, all right?" he promised me. "You're not alone in this; you have me. And I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

I stared at him, studying his golden eyes intently. "You know something, don't you?" I asked him cautiously. Edward didn't say anything, just looked away. "What is it? What do you know? Look, you can't keep stuff from me, Edward, if this is going to work, then we have to be honest with each other. That's what a relationship is, it's trusting each other and being honest with each other."

"I know." Edward still stared ahead of him, then sighed. "Did you happen to hear about those animal attacks in Mason County?"

"Yeah, of course," I said at once, remembering why Charlie had taken off almost every night for the past couple of weeks. He had been heading down there so he could help out trying to track down the animal and it was heading closer to Forks, last I'd heard about it.

"What you probably haven't heard—what the police are leaving out of the reports," Edward said grimly, "is that the bodies have all been drained of blood."

My hands froze automatically and I stared at him uncomprehendingly before I understood. "Are you telling me that there are other vampires around here?" I asked. "And they're responsible for these attacks?"

Edward nodded. "There's others out there, not many, and usually just one or two nomads passing through," he explained. "There aren't very many covens as big as ours is. Ours is one of the biggest," he told me. "It's very rare for our kind to live together in such a big group. And we come across them from time to time. From the looks of things, it's at least two vampires. We've been trying to track them, but they're elusive. Even Alice is having trouble finding them with her gift," he explained.

"And you think that Valentine's warning has something to do with these vampires?" I asked uncertainly.

He sighed. "I don't know. It's too big of a coincidence and yet . . ."

"There's no such thing as coincidence," I said flatly. "Coincidences simply don't happen, Edward. Things are almost always connected, especially if it happens to be supernatural and especially if there's a demigod involved."

Wrapping his arm around me reassuringly, Edward told me, "Look, we're going to figure this out. Nothing is going to happen to you. I'm gonna tell Alice to keep an eye on you and she'll see if there's any danger."

Nodding once, I snuggled closer to him, laying my head hesitantly on his chest, looking up at him to see if this was all right, but he didn't look like he minded. In fact, his arms moved around me protectively, smoothing my dark brown locks away from my face.

"I miss her so much," I said quietly.

Edward nodded. "I know," he said gently. "It must have been hard for you to see her like that."

"You have no idea," I mumbled. It was hard seeing Valentine as a ghost, almost as hard as it had been when we were burning her shroud. "Edward, do you want to come inside? I really don't want to be alone right now," I said in a small voice.

He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. "I would love to, but I'm afraid Charlie's coming home and he's not alone," he said unhappily. "Unfortunately, it's with company that wouldn't be wise to mix with." I frowned. "I'll explain it to you later, but as soon as they're gone, I'll come back," he promised me. "You should get inside. I'll be back soon."

"What company?" I demanded as I reluctantly pulled away from him. Edward glanced over his shoulder and I followed his gaze, spotting an unfamiliar truck, followed by Charlie's cruiser.

But even though I didn't recognise the truck or the passengers, I guessed at once who they were: the man had to be Billy Black, Charlie's friend from the reservation, and the kid was undoubtedly his son (Jack? James? Something beginning with a J).

"Oh," I said with a sigh. I looked sideways at him. "Those Quileute legends that I've heard . . . are those true?"

Edward gave me a pointed look, eyebrows raised and I sighed. "Right. I'll see you later."

"Be safe," he whispered as I climbed out of his car. "And I won't be far. If something happens, just call for me."

"I will, I promise," I assured him, closing the door and Edward pulled out of the driveway, keeping his speed limited in front of the Chief and turned around the corner, pulling out of sight.

Billy Black's expression was unreadable as he pulled into the parking spot that Edward had just vacated, Charlie right behind him. Judging by the look on his face, though, I would have to say that he knew exactly who I had been with . . . or rather, _what_ I had been with.

"Hey, Susan," Charlie greeted me the moment that he climbed out of his car while the two visitors were getting out of their truck. Actually, the son was just getting out, grabbing a wheelchair out from the back for his father to get into. "How was school, kiddo? Who was that you were just with?" he asked curiously.

"Uh . . . just a friend," I said quickly, not wanting to get into an explanation, especially if I was right and Billy knew exactly who and what the Cullens were.

"Oh." Charlie looked puzzled, but he didn't press it as he looked towards the two visitors. "Well, I'd like you to meet my very good friend Billy Black and his son Jacob. Guys, this is Susan."

"Hi, nice to meet you," I said, moving forward to accept Billy's hand and then Jacob's.

"A pleasure," Billy said, though he was regarding me searchingly. "I was wondering when we would finally get to meet you. Charlie here hasn't shut up since he found out that you were coming here." He grinned suddenly towards Charlie, who rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, we were planning on watching the game," Charlie said, shooting his friend a dirty look. "You're welcome to join us if you want to."

But of course, he knew by now that I wasn't exactly a sports fan. I could watch them on occasion, but I couldn't watch them for very long without getting antsy. So rather than agree, I just waved my hand away.

"That's okay, I've got homework to do anyway," I said, shrugging. It wasn't a lie; I did have a couple of chapters to read for English, plus a history report to write. "So I'll probably be stuck in my room all night away. You guys have fun."

I could feel Billy's gaze on me the whole time that I was unlocking the door and letting the guys inside, even while Charlie was setting up the television and I had disappeared into the kitchen to grab something to eat. I hadn't eaten much lunch and I was starving.

"You guys want something to eat?" I offered, not wanting to be rude. "Uncle Charlie?"

"No, we're fine, thank you," Billy said while Charlie took me up on my offer and I disappeared into the kitchen, making a couple of turkey and cheese sandwiches and putting some chips in the bowl, taking it out to the guys before I headed upstairs with my sandwich.

As it was, I didn't get as much homework done as I would have liked; I managed to get about half of the history report done and finished about half of the chapters for English before Charlie insisted that I come downstairs and have dinner with them. And I couldn't exactly refuse, even though every inch of me was screaming not to go down there. I couldn't refuse his request, considering I was going to have to eat dinner sometime.

So I forced myself to go downstairs and make polite conversation and be the dutiful niece, but I had the feeling that Billy was going to try and force me to talk to him and I was right.

After Jacob had gone back out to watch some more television and Charlie had excused himself to go to the bathroom, Billy seized his chance before I could make my escape.

"Susan," he said as I was cleaning up the plates. I glanced back at him. "I noticed this afternoon that you were in the company of one of the Cullens."

"Yes," I said, my voice even. "I was."

If he was surprised by my calm admission, he didn't show it, just met my blue-green eyes seriously. "If you don't mind my saying so, I don't think that's the best idea," he informed me. "The Cullens are not the best people that you should be getting involved in."

"And maybe I know some things that you don't," I replied, turning away from him and starting to run the sink full of water.

"The Cullens are dangerous, Susan," Billy said forcibly, as though trying to make me see sense by sheer will. His dark eyes were serious. "More dangerous than you could possibly understand."

"See, you're wrong there, too," I said pleasantly, looking back him. "I know exactly how dangerous they are and I'm not about to deny that fact, but let us be perfectly clear about something, Mr. Black: they are not the most dangerous thing out there. Pretty far from, actually."

Billy sat back in his chair, regarding me suspiciously. "They are not the first legendary creatures that you've come across, are they?"

"That," I said delicately, "is not something that I'm planning on discussing. My past is not something that I'm going to up and share with anybody, with all due respect. But let's make something clear, Mr. Black. I can decide for myself who and what is dangerous, because believe me, I've had my fair share of danger in my life and the Cullens are far from the most dangerous things that I've seen."

He studied me intently then sighed. "I suppose that I'm not going to be able to change your mind about this."

"No. I appreciate the concern, but I am more than capable of taking care of myself."

"But I will tell you that if you are ever in need of our assistance, we will help you. Charlie is my best friend and if you ever need help, we will be more than happy to help you," Billy told me. "I know that you think otherwise, but if you ever need help . . . we'll be waiting."

"You'll be waiting for a long time, Mr. Black. This is my life and I'm gonna decide how I'm going to live it."

"Just so long as you know that you have someone to turn to, should things not go as you plan."

I shrugged. "Most of the time, stuff rarely goes the way that I plan. I always seem to find a way out of the trouble that I get myself into."

Billy studied me. I think he was trying to figure out whether or not I was joking, but he just shrugged and nodded, not saying another word, but that might have been because Charlie came back into the room.

The Blacks stayed for awhile longer, but Billy didn't say another word to me and certainly didn't say anything to Charlie, but that was only probably because Charlie was already kind of mad at him for being prejudiced against the Cullens, as Jacob explained to me when Billy sent him to go help me do the dishes.

"So Seth Clearwater's been talking about you ever since you came down to the reservation that day," Jacob told me with a grin. "I think that he might have a little bit of a crush on you."

"Oh, is that so?" I said, chuckling. "Well, you should probably tell him that I've already been taken. Don't be mean, though. He's a sweet kid. He actually kind of reminds me of my brother."

"You got a brother?"

"Well . . . half-brother, technically. Percy and I share the same father," I explained, shrugging. Speaking of which, I should probably give him a call later, just so he could be reassured that I hadn't been killed since the last time I called him.

And to prevent him from taking Blackjack out here and whisk me away back to New York where he could keep an eye on me.

"Hey, I'm sorry if my dad was giving you any trouble earlier," Jacob said unexpectedly. "He offered to pay me twenty bucks if I would clear the room so he could talk to you."

I chuckled. "Well, don't worry about it. He's a pretty decent guy and his heart was in the right place."

"Let me guess, he was telling you stay away from Cullen?" I looked around at him in surprise and Jacob laughed. "Dad's pretty superstitious and takes all of those old legends to heart. I wouldn't listen to what he was telling you too much if I were you."

"Don't worry about it, Jacob," I assured him. "He and I reached an understanding. And tell him to pay up," I added, grinning at him.

"Will do," Jacob promised.

We chatted for a little while longer, but it wasn't too long before the Blacks had to leave. I said goodbye to them and bid Charlie good night, under the pretence of doing my English reading, but really, I wanted to get upstairs as soon as possible. I was already feeling that tingling feeling, the electric shock that meant Edward was nearby.

Sure enough, the moment that I stepped into my bedroom, Edward was sitting cross-legged on my bed.

"So you want to explain why exactly you had to take off as soon as they got here?" I asked him curiously, closing the door behind him and crawling onto the bed. Edward scooped me up, depositing me into his lap and playing with my hair affectionately.

"Well, mostly because the Quileutes aren't exactly friendly towards us," he explained. "And they have a long memory, which is why we don't go on to their lands. Most of the stories are nothing but legends now, but the oldest of them are bound to remember the old stories. We formed a treaty with them the last time that we were here."

"Yeah, one of the local boys Seth Clearwater told me about that," I said, shrugging. He looked at me in surprise. "He said that your family was here before and you guys made a treaty with them. So long as you kept off of their lands, they wouldn't reveal your true identities."

"That was only part of it," Edward said matter-of-factly. "The other part of the treaty was that we couldn't bite or turn another human or the truce would be over."

"Wow," I muttered. "So basically, it was just 'no screw ups or we're going to declare war on you.'"

Edward smiled. "Basically. That was out of line, though; he shouldn't have warned you to stay away from us," he muttered.

"I should have known that you would be eavesdropping," I complained. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that that's quite rude?"

"No," Edward said, chuckling.

"Forget about it; I let him know, in a very ladylike manner, that I appreciated the advice, but I could take care of myself."

"Ladylike?" Edward looked incredulous and had trouble keeping a straight face.

"Hey, I can be ladylike if I want to," I said, giving him a look, but he just kept smirking, his golden eyes amused. "Shut up."

"Yes, ma'am," he said obediently. "So . . . I was thinking that maybe you'd like to meet my family." I looked at him, shocked. "Maybe tomorrow, after school?" he offered.

"Um . . . do you really think that's the best idea?" I asked uncertainly. "I mean, your brothers and sisters have exactly warmed up to me." I certainly didn't want to go where I was unwelcome. "And what about Valentine's warning? We can't just ignore it."

"We're not going to," he assured me. "But Alice will keep an eye on things and warn us if she sees any trouble heading our way. And don't worry about my family; I've already talked to them and they're up to date on everything. They'll be good, I promise."

I took a deep breath, suddenly nervous about meeting his family. But I also realised that I did want to meet them.

"Aphrodite sure knows how to pick them," I muttered. I would bet my last fifty bucks that I had in my bank account that this was what the goddess had been planning when I came here. I'm pretty sure that this is what she had told me about.

Edward frowned. "What?"

"Nothing," I said too quickly. "I'll tell you one day, when I think that you're ready to hear it." I took a deep breath. "Okay, tomorrow it is. And by everything, do you mean_ everything_?"

"Everything," Edward promised. "Beautiful, demigod daughter of the Sea God."


	12. Meeting the Cullens

Midnight Star

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Twelve: Meeting the Cullens

If someone asked me if I was worried about going to the Cullen house, then that would probably be the understatement of the century. I wasn't worried; I was panicked.

Oh, sure, I knew that they wouldn't do anything to hurt me . . . probably; that's not what I was freaked out about. What I was worried about was what they were going to think about me. I had never had a boyfriend before, so I'd never done the whole "meet the parents" thing. So even without the whole "my boyfriend is a vampire" thing, I would've been worried about it.

All right, maybe "boyfriend" was getting a little ahead of myself, since we hadn't really sat down and discussed everything, but considering that he kissed me in front of the whole school—okay, everyone who was in the cafeteria, but by now, it probably spread through the rest of the school—I think that it constituted as somewhere within the boyfriend realm.

So basically, all through school, I was nervous about what was going to happen afterwards, making me restless all day. More than once, one of the teachers had to ask me to pay attention to what they were doing and I had to force myself to focus on what was on the board even more than usual.

Edward noticed my distracted during science. "Relax," he murmured into my ear while Mr. Molina droned on. "Everything's going to be fine. You don't have to worry."

"Yeah, compared to fighting a Titan army, meeting a family of vampires is nothing," I murmured back, keeping my voice lowered enough so that nobody else heard what we were saying. His mouth twitched in amusement and he coughed back a laugh, his eyes twinkling.

If Mr. Molina noticed us talking, he either didn't care or was just simply ignoring us, but in any case, we went more or less unnoticed as we talked all through science and Edward snatched up my backpack before I could get it and escorted me out the door.

Ever the gentleman, he refused to even let me open the entrance doors by myself and only handed me my backpack back once I was settled in the passenger's seat of my car. Alice and the others were already gone, having left before us, probably to prepare themselves for their demigod visitor.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed that there was a familiar tune coming from the radio and I cocked my head. "Caribbean Classics?" I asked, looking towards him in surprise. Edward shrugged.

"They sounded interesting when you were talking about them yesterday, so I went out and bought one last night. You were right; they're pretty interesting."

With a smile, I leaned my head back, listening to the familiar tunes as Edward navigated his way through Forks, driving much faster than I would test my thirty-something year old truck and above the Forks speed limits, so we started moving outside of town not even five minutes later—for which I was grateful, because the short drive didn't give my nerves a chance to exhilarate.

It didn't take long at all before we rounded the corner and turned into the Cullens' driveway, moving towards the incredibly beautiful house.

"Wow," I breathed, staring up at it. My stepfather's a doctor, so those few years that I lived with him and my mom, we didn't exactly live shabby, so I've seen some pretty beautiful houses before, but this house put anything that I'd ever seen before to shame.

It was one of those old houses that still looks in prime condition, as though it had just popped out of another century, at least three stories high and painted white, with a porch that wrapped all around the main floor. I couldn't believe my eyes as I saw it, my mouth opening in awe.

Edward chuckled at my expression. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," I said, unable to hide my glee. "It's beautiful. I've never seen anything like it."

"It's the one place that we never have to hide," Edward told me as he moved around to my side, opening up the door and offering his hand to help me out. "Shall we?"

Taking a deep breath to calm my nervousness, I looked up at the beautiful house, which suddenly looked very intimidating and nodded. "Okay, let's go," I said. Edward lifted my hand to his lips and planted a gentle kiss on it, as though sensing my apprehension.

"Relax," he assured me, a playful look in his golden eyes, "we don't bite."

A snigger escaped from me at that comment and he laughed with me, leading me up the stairs and into the house.

If it were possible, the house was even more beautiful on the inside, but then again, I've always had a soft spot for old houses. If I lived long enough to have enough money, then I planned on buying a house like this, ancient and elegant and refined.

Already expecting us, Dr. and Mrs. Cullen were waiting the moment that we stepped inside. Like the rest of her "children," Mrs. Cullen was pale and golden-eyed and she had caramel hair that fell gracefully around her shoulders and a wide, open, motherly smile that immediately made me feel welcomed.

"Welcome, Susan," she said, greeting me as she stepped forward, warmly inviting me further into the parlour. "It's so nice to have you here. I'm Esme."

"Hi," I said shyly, but my nervousness was dying away with every passing moment as I took another look around the parlour. Dr. Cullen, too, was there, as Edward had promised, along with Alice and Jasper. Rosalie and Emmett were nowhere to be found. "You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh, thank you, and please, call me Esme," she assured me.

Alice bounced forward as though she had just drunk ten gallons of coffee, pulling me away from Edward and further into the house. "Come on, Susan," she said excitedly, "we made some tea for you and Esme made some chocolate chip cookies that I know that you're really going to like," she added with complete confidence. I was instantly reminded of what Alice's gifts were and threw a glance back at Edward, who was shaking his head at his sister, but gave me a reassuring smile.

Evidentially, Alice is not someone that you ever want to place a bet against, because not only did she have my favourite kind of cookies—chocolate chip made with white chocolate chips and straight from the oven—she already had my tea made up the way that I like it.

It felt weird to be the only one eating, but I wasn't about to be rude and refuse since they'd gone through the trouble of making it. Plus, they were really good. For someone who doesn't eat, Esme was a really good cook.

"So Susan, tell us about yourself," Esme said warmly as we had taken places in the parlour. "Edward told us that you're from New York. That must have been exciting." She smiled at her daughter. "Alice drags us there every once in awhile to go shopping."

"Speaking of which, we should go shopping sometime soon there," Alice said, sounding excited, bouncing in her seat. "New York is the _best_ place to do some serious shopping and I haven't done that in ages. We should make a weekend out of it," she added to me, "we can take off right after school lets out Friday and be back first thing Monday."

"Oh, I couldn't," I protested weakly.

"Nonsense," Alice said cheerfully. "We'll fly out there and—" She stopped suddenly, her eyes going vacant. In the seat next to me, Edward stiffened, his eyes growing dark. "Oh, that doesn't make sense."

"What?" I asked, looking at Edward.

"She's seeing the plane getting struck by lightning the moment that we take off," Edward told me, obviously seeing what she saw in her mind.

"Yeah, that's what I was about to explain," I said weakly, well aware that five pairs of golden eyes were watching me. "I can't fly; my uncle really doesn't like it when my brother and I go through his realm."

"Your uncle?" Jasper questioned.

"Yeah, Zeus," I sighed, glancing skyward. "He would blast me out of the sky the second that the plane took off and he specifically told my brother never to enter his domain again. The only reason that he allowed it was because Percy was doing him a favour at the time." I shrugged at their scandalous looks. "Zeus and Poseidon are each other's bitterest rivals; what can you do?"

Dr. Cullen cleared his throat, looking extremely interested. "It's extraordinary; I never considered that any of the Greek myths would have any merit to them. Tell me, are there many of your kind?" His golden eyes were alight with interest, craving knowledge.

"Yeah, there are hundreds of demigods in the world," I said with a shrug. "Most of them live at camp while others lead more or less normal lives and there are some that are pretty famous, like White House famous. Most of the historical figures are actually demigods."

"Fascinating," Dr. Cullen murmured, completely enthralled. "Absolutely fascinating."

My nervousness was slowly slipping away and I was getting more and more relaxed around the Cullens, although I suspected that this had more to do with Jasper than anything else, remembering what Edward had told me about his abilities.

Of course, with Alice there, it would be hard for anyone to feel ill at ease and within ten minutes, I was smiling and chatting with the Cullens, answering any questions that they had and asking questions of my own, which they readily answered.

Edward sat right next to me the entire time, his hand resting in mine, which was both reassuring and distracting. Half the time, I had to force myself to pay attention to what someone was saying, otherwise I'd get lost in the electric feeling coursing through my body and be completely oblivious to what they were saying.

Finally, Esme suggested that Edward take me on a tour of the rest of the house and shooed us away, a delighted smile on her face as she watched us go.

"I'm sorry about Alice," Edward apologised the moment that we had climbed up the stairs. "She's very . . . enthusiastic."

"Don't be," I laughed. "I like her. She reminds me a lot of Valentine; both of them can never resist turning down a shopping opportunity. It's actually nice to have someone like that around again." I smiled as I shoved my hands in my pockets.

As he led me down the hallway, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair poking her head around a doorway, along with a pair of hateful golden eyes that were fixed upon me.

Edward hissed and Rosalie vanished, the door slamming behind her and he looked at me, sighing.

"She doesn't like me, does she?" I guessed, hardly surprised. Rosalie was someone that I pictured as unyieldingly obstinate and if her reactions every time that I caught a glimpse of her at school were any indication, then she wasn't exactly warm towards me, though I couldn't fathom the reason, because I hadn't done anything to her or her family to make her hate me.

"Rosalie has trouble with the idea that someone outside of the family knowing about us," he said, shrugging. "And you're human—well, half-human," he corrected. "She wishes that she was, too."

"So . . . she didn't choose this?"

"None of us did," he admitted. "Carlisle was changed by an unknown vampire in the 1640's, when he was leading a raiding party against a coven of vampires. I was the first one that he changed. He found me in a hospital in Chicago, dying of Spanish Influenza. I was all alone, my parents were already dead, taken by the disease, so no one would notice if I disappeared. Esme come into our family next; she'd fallen off of a cliff and was so close to dying that they didn't even bother taking her to the hospital, just took her straight to the morgue. And then Rosalie came," he said, "and then Emmett. Rosalie found him being attacked by a bear and she rescued him before bringing him to Carlisle so he could change him."

"What about Alice and Jasper?"

"They had a life outside of our family," he said, shrugging. "I suppose you could say that they were adopted into our family. Jasper came from a very different family." He met my eyes once and I understood; the family that he'd come from did not live as the Cullens did, but fed off humans. "Alice, on the other hand, has no idea what happened to her. She woke up as a vampire, with no memories of her human life or who turned her, but with her sight, she saw Jasper and went to go look for him and then they found us."

"Hmm." I frowned slightly. "Edward, how exactly does that work? The visions, the empathy, the mind-reading? How come some of you have powers and others don't?"

"No one really knows," he confessed, "but Carlisle thinks that we bring something into our new lives, one of our strongest human traits. For him, it was compassion; for Esme, her ability to love; for Emmett, his strength; and for Rosalie, it was stubbornness," he said, grinning over his shoulder and I heard a door slam nearby, making me suspect that Rosalie was listening. "He thinks that I must have had some form of mind-reading already and Alice had some form of precognition."

"Or clear sight," I murmured.

"What?"

I looked at him. "There are some humans that are born with the ability to see through the Mist. They can see things clearly; see monsters for what they really are, they can see celestial bronze—which is what our weapons are made out of—they aren't fooled by the Mist. I mean, some of them can see even better than demigods can. My mom was like that, though she ignores that sight now. And our Oracle at camp Rachel, she sees through the Mist. Maybe Alice had clear sight."

"Hmm." Edward considered that. "That's plausible. That would actually make some sense." He paused as he opened a door, the last one on the hall, allowing me to stop into the room behind it. "This is my room."

He had an amazing view, I thought as I stepped inside, overlooking the river and woods behind his house and the mountains were within view as I looked out.

As he didn't need to sleep, there was no bed, but instead, a very nice and expensive leather coach. All along one of the walls, there was thousands upon thousands of CDs of every era since the dawn of time, every genre that could have been invented, every artist that you could want. Even the music store in Forks didn't have this much selection.

"Your room is much cleaner than mine," I observed, causing him to laugh merrily.

"Well, I have had a hundred years to perfect that skill," he reminded me, smiling. "Now, I believe I promised you a dance lesson, didn't I?"

I looked at him, alarmed. "What? Right here?" I asked.

"No better time," he replied, shrugging as he picked up a remote, pointing it towards the stereo system, and music began to play.

As the gentle melody began to play, perfect for learning how to slow dance, Edward turned to me and bowed, offering me his hand. Hoping very much that I didn't step on his feet, I took his offered hand, stepping closer into his embrace. He lifted my free hand and placed it around his neck, causing my heart to hammer, and led me into a waltz.

We stepped together, with Edward in the lead, one hand around my waist and the other guiding me in the waltz, dancing softly in his room, with a sweet melody in the background, guiding us along. He was a lot better at it than I was, but he was patient, guiding me along to the music, swirling me around the room.

"My mom and my stepfather used to do this," I said after a long moment of dancing, filled with complete quietness that felt completely comfortable. "I used to sneak out of bed and watch them from the staircase. Mom never looked happier than when she was dancing with him. It was one of the few good memories that I have of her; she never looked like that whenever she was looking at me."

"Like what?"

I looked up at Edward. "Happy," I confessed. "Full of life and light. When she was like that, I could almost see the woman that my dad fell in love with, the woman who was supposed to be my mother."

Edward smiled at me and kissed my forehead gentle, drawing me closer to him. I laid my head into his shoulder, marvelling at the utter rightness that it felt, being here, in his arms, as though this was where I belonged.

"This wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be, was it?" he asked, switching the subject.

"Are we talking about being inside a house full of vampires or learning to dance?" I returned with a smile. He smiled back at me knowingly. "No, it's not. I like them; they're really nice. Alice isn't going to find some way to sneak me onto a plane, is she?" I asked anxiously.

"I wouldn't put it past her, but don't worry, I'll stop her before she tries anything," he promised me.

"Yeah, because Zeus really will blast me out of the skies if I go into his realm," I said, shaking my head. "Besides that, I'm deathly scared of flying. There's no way that you'll ever get me a plane."

"Have you _ever_ flown before?" Edward asked curiously.

I shook my head. "No, before Mom married Jarrod, there was never enough money to go anywhere and I didn't stay with them for very long after she _did_ marry him. Besides, the only time that they left was to go on their honeymoon and they weren't about to bring along a twelve-year-old on that. After I went to camp, Chiron warned me never to go on a plane, since there was a very slim chance that I would come back down."

"Chiron . . ." Edward mused. "Is he . . .?"

"The Chiron from the stories?" I asked. "Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yeah, he is. He's a centaur. Actually, he told me that he's met your family before, but he was probably in disguise when he was doing it. He has a magical wheelchair that he uses whenever he's looking over a potential demigod. It hides his centaur form."

Edward shook his head. "You would think I would remember something like that, but even with photographic memory, it doesn't ring a bell. But that's pretty unbelievable."

He suddenly dipped me, catching me off guard and I almost lost my balance were it not for his strong hands holding me reassuringly in place. I glared up at his twinkling golden eyes. "That was so not funny," I muttered, but with his vampiric hearing, he caught every word.

Chuckling quietly, Edward pulled me up. "You're a wonderful dancer," he informed me.

"You're biased," I informed him, shaking my head as I stepped back, away from him, grinning slightly.

"Biased, am I?"

"Yes," I agreed sweetly, "because you know that I'll whip your butt if you say otherwise."

I heard a guffaw coming from somewhere nearby, making me suspect that someone was listening—if not all of them were. Having as good as hearing as everybody here did, they probably didn't have much secrets. Add in Edward's mind-reading and Alice's visions, then it was probably a pretty good bet that they didn't have _any. _

"Oh, can you?" Edward was grinning now.

"Hmm . . . I wonder if celestial bronze works on vampires," I mused thoughtfully, dangling my necklace in between my hands thoughtfully, piercing my lips together.

"Good question," Edward agreed.

"Oh, well," I said, shrugging carelessly. "We'll just have to find out, now won't we?"

"Hmm . . ." Edward was suddenly looking at me slyly. "I have much better idea."

I shrieked in surprise as he suddenly tackled me, pulling me into his arms and onto his lap as I suddenly found myself on the touch, his arms circling around me, a mischievous glint in my eyes that I recognised all too well; it was usually one that my brothers have right before they're about to perform their "Tickle Susan to Death" game.

"Oh, no!" I protested before I could stop the words. "Don't you _dare_ tickle me, Edward Cullen!"

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew that I never should have said them, because he immediately started tickling.

"Stop it!" I implored him while laughter erupted from me. That's something that I _really_ hate; I'm extremely ticklish. "Oh, gods!" I laughed more freely than I have in over a year. "Please, Edward, stop it!"

Eventually, he did stop, but by then, we had company. Alice pranced in like a ballerina. "Sorry, Edward, but I'm going to have to steal Susan away from a minute," she said, grabbing hold of my arm and tugging on it, to try and pull me away from Edward.

"Go away, Alice," he complained, making a face at his sister.

"Well, I thought she might actually like some input as to what she's going to wear to the homecoming dance," Alice pointed out slyly. "And since_ you_ asked me to help with that . . ."

"It's okay," I said, allowing Alice to pull me away from Edward. "Besides, it'll give me ample time to plot some revenge against you for that."

Jasper laughed from the doorway, looking amused. "You better watch out for her," he told his brother, who chuckled. "She's bound to be more dangerous than all the Cullen women put together."

Alice grinned at her . . . mate? Husband? I wasn't sure on what the right term was as she pulled me towards what I presumed was her bedroom.


	13. Revelations

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Thirteen: Revelations

Alice dragged me all the down the hall and pushed me into her and Jasper's bedroom, which looked like a cross between a designer's studio and a movie star's closet. Through a door off to the side, there was an open closet that looked bigger than the bedroom itself and there were more clothes in that one room than I had ever seen, more clothes than I could possibly wear in one lifetime.

Suddenly, I was reminded of Edward's commented of how Alice could never refuse an opportunity to shop as she pulled me into the closet. For such a small girl—even for a vampire—she had a surprisingly strong grip, I noticed as she dove into the closet. I stared at all of the clothes around me, marvelling at how many clothes could be in one room. How could she possibly find anything in this madhouse?

"So I've been looking around for something that would look adorable on you," Alice called from where she was, in the back of the closet. "I was already looking around for you by the time that Edward asked me to find something. If I'd waited until the last second, then you would have been stuck with something off the rack and where's the fun in that? Anyway, I finally found something that I think you'll look absolutely amazing in," she said as she finally reappeared with a garment bag in hand, unzipping it and revealing an incredibly beautiful dress. "Tell me what you think."

I've never been much of a dress girl; whenever I went to the mall for clothes shopping, it was usually because Valentine dragged me, but even I had to admit that the dress was incredible. Actually, it was more than incredible; it was the most beautiful dress that I had ever seen.

It was the perfect shade of blue, the colour of the ocean on a clear day with a long billowing skirt. The sleeves were long and see-through with seashell patterns on the fabric. It looked like something that a princess would wear, not a monster-fighting demigod.

"So?" Alice asked impatiently, her golden eyes glowing as she held it up against my chest, pulling me towards the mirror, where I could see my reflection with the dress held up to me. "What do you think?"

"It's . . . incredible," I said honestly. I never in a million years would have picked out something like this to wear for myself, but Alice had picked out something that would suit me perfectly. "It's beautiful, Alice, thank you. I've never been much of a dress girl, but this is incredible. Thank you so much," I said, surprising her by hugging her.

Alice laughed as she hugged me back, her smile wide and friendly. "I thought that it would suit you and I was right. Besides," she added as she took the dress and replaced it in the garment bag, "it's nice to have Edward looking at someone the way that he looks at you. We had just about given up on him finding anyone. And he needs someone like you to push him around." She made a face, cocking her head. "Yes, you do!" she said loudly. "And stop listening in, Edward, this is girl talk only."

"Is he listening?" I asked, already knowing the answer, smiling.

"Of course," Alice said, laughing as she hung up the dress.

"So are you going to the homecoming dance too?" I asked her. "You and Jasper?"

Alice nodded, her face glowing with excitement. "Of course we are," she said, clapping her hands together in excitement. "Rosalie and Emmett are going too. She never misses an opportunity to show off," she added with a grin. I covered my mouth to stifle the snicker, but I think that some small noise escaped, because she was glaring at me later on. "I've been planning our outfits for months; did you want to see?"

"Yeah, I would love to," I said. Alice smiled in appreciation and gestured for me to follow her further into the closet. It was a good thing that I did, because I was bound to get lost in this place. Malls were easier to navigate than this thing. I swear, Alice would fit in very nicely in the Aphrodite cabin, I thought in amusement.

When we finally reached some garment bags, Alice pulled out a particular one and revealed a dark forest green gown with sequins all over the bodice, which was much more revealing than anything that I would ever _consider_ wearing, but it would look amazing on Alice. She wasn't as self-conscious as I was.

Rosalie's gown was black satin and _very_ revealing, even more so than Alice's was. Every boy's eye was going to be upon her as soon as she entered the room when she wore this, which probably wasn't going to make any of the girls very happy, I thought, smiling in amusement.

Maybe it was because she reminded me of Valentine, but I actually enjoyed chatting and hanging out with Alice. She was fun to be around and it was hard for anyone to feel ill at ease with her.

"Hey Alice, can I ask you something?" I inquired. She nodded as she returned the dresses back to their proper place on the racks of clothing and headed out of the closet. "That first day of school when we met . . . what did you mean when you told me that I could come over here anytime that I wanted?"

She paused, looking back at me, a faraway look in her eyes. "Well, I thought that would be obvious," she said. "Anyone could tell that you were sad, Susan. Your eyes are a bit of giveaway."

"Sorry?"

"You're like an open book," she explained placidly. "Your emotions are reflected in them for anyone to see. People can read them just as easily as they can read a book. Why do you think so many boys are begging for your attention?" she asked impatiently. "They're desperate to find out why you're so sad and comfort you. Of course, it's not so much anymore," she added with a smile. "You're much happier now."

"I'm a lot happier," I assured her. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time I had been as happy as I am now. "I haven't been this happy in a long time, not since before the war started."

"And I thought that you could use a friend," Alice replied. "Like I said, everyone needs a friend and sometimes it helps if you can share all of your deep, dark secrets with them."

She wasn't wrong, I thought with a smile. I had opened up with the Cullens a lot more than I had opened up with my own brother as of late. Percy didn't even know anything about the Cullens yet—unless Annabeth had told him, anyway. But she had promised that she wouldn't unless he asked her and while I love him, he isn't that bright when it comes to girls.

"By the way, your brother will be calling you when you get home," Alice said as though she had known what I was thinking, as though she were the mind reader instead of her brother. "He's calling to make sure that you're all right and no monsters have killed you." She frowned. "Why do monsters track you down all the time?"

"An unfortunate consequence of being a demigod and especially being the daughter of one of the Big Three," I said dryly. "If there's a monster within a twenty-mile radius, it's bound to find me. And how do you know that Percy's gonna call me?"

"Oh, he made the decision a while ago," Alice said matter-of-factly as Edward appeared in the door, grinning at me.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" he asked, still smiling. "How can anyone so tiny be so annoying?"

I giggled as Alice did the mature thing and stuck her tongue out at her brother, making a face at him. For being two immortal vampires who weren't technically related, it was incredible how they could act exactly like brother and sister. They were acting more or less how Percy and I act sometimes. Or Percy and Thalia, our cousin. They never did get along.

"Anyway," Edward said, switching the subject, "it's getting pretty late; I should probably get you home before Charlie realises that you're missing." He gave me a reproachful look. "I assume that you didn't tell him that you were coming here?"

"Hey, the less that my uncle knows, the better," I said, ignoring the disapproving tone. Edward sighed. "And anyway, he wasn't going to be home tonight anyway; he's been working late these past couple weeks."

Edward clearly didn't approve of this, but he didn't argue either as Alice snatched up the garment bag and pushed it into my hands. "Here, I'll come over on Saturday to help you with your hair and make-up," she said as she also added a box of shoes into my hands.

"Should I be worried?" I asked, grinning at Edward, who chuckled as he nodded slightly.

"Terrified," he confirmed.

I said goodbye to Carlisle and Esme and thanked them both for having me over. Esme told me that I was welcome here anytime and not to be shy about coming over here. Even Emmett emerged from his bedroom—though Rosalie stubbornly stayed upstairs—to say goodbye to me, though I had a feeling it was more to check me out than anything else.

"You're sure about this half-human thing, Eddie?" he said, grinning towards his brother. "She sure looks human enough to me. I would have though that you'd have gills or a fin or something like that," he said, his golden eyes filled with laughter.

Of course, it died about a second later as I summoned water from deep within me. I can control any source of water, but I can also summon it, though it takes a lot more effort to do that than it does to just control water and I don't usually do it unless it's an emergency, but what's life without a little bit of fun?

Concentrating on summoning the water, I dumped it onto Emmett, soaking him completely. He sputtered as he was suddenly drenched, his clothes clinging to his body.

Edward had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing and Alice and Jasper burst out laughing while Esme and Carlisle looked high amused.

"Gills and fins aren't likely," I assured Emmett, smiling serenely. "Although a huge ego isn't entirely out of the question." He sputtered at me incoherently. "Did I also mention that I can talk to horses and breathe underwater? Oh and I don't get wet unless I want to," I added, grinning at him. "I always have to remember to make sure that I come out wet whenever I take a shower and Charlie's home, otherwise it would be a little bit suspicious."

Emmett was still sputtering at me, but he was grinning slightly with a promise of retaliation in his golden eyes as Edward, laughing, pulled me from the house and into the car.

In the few hours since school had ended and I'd been at the Cullens, day had slowly turned into night and the absent sun had descended into the horizon, turning the town dark as Edward drove me home. As soon as he pulled in the driveway, I was surprised to discover that Charlie's cop cruiser was sitting in its usual spot in the driveway and even through the scent of fresh rain, I caught a whiff of burnt cooking.

"Oh, gods," I muttered, shaking my head. "Charlie and I really need to attend a cooking class or something, otherwise we're going to end up in the hospital due to food poisoning."

"You could always sign up for Home-etc at school," Edward suggested. "I could ask the secretary to change your schedule."

"Oh, just like that?"

"Just like that," he said, grinning at me. "You won't believe the favours that I can get from the school."

"You vampires," I said, swatted him playfully. "I'd better get inside before Charlie burns the house down."

"Quite plausible, considering that he's not paying attention to what he's cooking anymore and looking out the window," Edward commented. I gulped; I had forgotten for a second that my truck was sitting in the driveway and I was nowhere to be found. He had probably had a heart attack when he realised that I wasn't home. "You should really tell him, you know."

"Tell him what? That I'm the demigod daughter of Poseidon whose boyfriend is a vampire?" I said lightly. He chuckled, but didn't dissuade my comment. "We never did get around to talking about that, you know."

"Talking about what?"

I took a deep breath and made the plunge, not looking back. "About whether or not you're my boyfriend."

Edward just looked at me with a hint of deep amusement in his eyes. "I would have thought that would be obvious," he replied, reaching out to touch my cheek tenderly, sending an electric feeling through me and I closed my eyes at the touch, leaning into his hand instinctively. "I'm your boyfriend, if that's what you want me to be."

"I do," I blurted out before I could think twice about what I was saying. "I do, I absolutely do!"

His golden gaze tore through me, searching me intently. "Are you sure?" he questioned hesitantly.

"Yes, of course, I do! I absolutely and completely—" I stopped when he started chuckled, fighting back a smile. "You're teasing me," I accused him, scowling.

"A little bit," he agreed, still chuckling. "But I have to admit, I did appreciate the enthusiasm."

I muttered something in Ancient Greek, which caused his eyebrows to go upwards. "You speak Ancient Greek?" he inquired.

"Yeah, it's one of the common signs of being a half-blood," I answered, shrugging. "I have dyslexia only because my brain is hard-wired for Ancient Greek; it's my natural language. It's what my dad's original language is. And the ADHD is my battle reflexes. When those two are put together, it's almost a sure sign that that person is a demigod."

Edward shook his head. "As amazing as all of this is, I think we're pressing our luck with your uncle," he said dryly. "He's about to come out here with his gun."

"_Di immortales_," I muttered, making a face. "Fine."

"I'll see you tomorrow," Edward promised me. "Bright and early."

I smiled as he moved back towards his car. "Does that mean that you won't be coming over tonight and watching me sleep?" I said lightly. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to look at me incredulously, but I just smiled back at him before shifting my backpack onto my shoulder and headed up towards the door, pushing it open and entering the house.

As Edward had promised, Charlie was poking his head out the window, watching us.

"Was that the Cullen boy?" he asked almost as soon as I had stepped into the house.

I sighed. "His name is Edward, Uncle Charlie, and yes, it was. He was just giving me a ride home." I paused, scrounging up my nose as the wave of burnt food caught my attention. It was even worse in the house. "What are you cooking, anyway?"

Charlie blinked, then seemed to remember what he had been doing before Edward and I had pulled up and diverted all of his attention towards us. Muttering something under his breath, he half-dived back into the kitchen just in time to keep the hamburgers from being set on fire, although they were burned completely black. Even the insides were black as I discovered when I was halfway through eating it. Maybe I really should drop that computer class that I was signed up for and take Home-etc, I thought.

"So," Charlie said, sounding very uncomfortable as he spoke, "where were you this afternoon? I was wondering when I saw your truck was still here."

"I was at the Cullens," I answered, feeling just as uncomfortable. Granted, I liked Charlie; he was a great uncle and I was indebted to him for taking me in when I needed it, but talking to him about boys was about as uncomfortable as it was talking to my brother about it. "Edward picked me up this morning so I wouldn't have to drop my truck off when he took me over to his place after school."

"Right, makes sense," Charlie said, nodding once. "So . . . is this Edward taking you to the dance Saturday?"

"Yeah," I said, "he is."

How I managed to say that without blushing as red as a tomato, I'll never figure out, but I couldn't stop the soft, happy smile from spreading across my face as I answered my uncle. I think he might have noticed how unbelievably happy or was or maybe he had noticed that the depressed, haggard niece that had stepped into his house months ago had slowly been slipping away in the recent weeks and I was smiling a lot more, because he didn't say a word, just nodded with a small smile, grimacing at the taste of his "food".

But he still asked as he managed to swallow what were supposed to be hamburgers, "Is Edward your boyfriend?"

"Um . . . yes," I said, deciding to go with the truth. I didn't want to keep secrets from Charlie any more than I had to. The boyfriend part, he might be able to handle, but the fact that his sister had an affair with the god of the seas and his niece was half-god might be a little much for him to handle. Most mortals can't handle the idea that there are actually monsters in the world and I'd rather not test Charlie's limits. "Yeah, he is my boyfriend."

Charlie nodded. "Well, good," he said, surprising me. "He seems like a nice young man." I had to fight down a smile at the "young" part; Edward was hardly young, considering that he was over a hundred. "And you seem a lot happier than you were. I think he's been good for you."

"Thanks," I said just as the phone rang. Charlie got to answer it, but I stopped him. "I'll get it; it's my brother, anyway. He said he was gonna call tonight," I said hastily, trying to explain away the fact that I knew that Percy was going to call.

"Oh." Charlie nodded as he sat back down and I got up to pick up the cordless.

"Hi, Perce," I said as I picked up the phone.

There was dead silence on the other end and the Percy demanded, "How on earth did you know that I was going to call?"

"Haven't you learned by now, Percy?" I said, grinning. "All women are psychic." Percy snorted. "So, what's up?"

"I was just calling to make sure you haven't been killed or anything," Percy said as I wandered into the living room, curling up onto the couch. I wasn't really too hungry, anyway, plus Charlie's cooking was worse tonight than it usually was. "And not all women are psychic, Sue."

"Oh, really? So your mom doesn't know when you're doing something that you shouldn't?"

Silence fell over the line and then Percy commented, "You're in a good mood tonight; what did _you_ do?"

"Nothing much, just went over to my boyfriend's house earlier today and hung out with him and his sister, did the whole meet-the-parents thing," I said calmly, inspecting the fingernails on my right hand.

Percy let out a curse that was somewhere between English and Ancient Greek. "Your _what_?" he all but exploded and I had to hold the phone halfway away from my ear just to keep it from ringing. "How could you have a boyfriend? You've only been there for a couple of months! What in Hades are you thinking? This guy could be a monster or something—" Well, I thought dryly, he wasn't _entirely_ wrong about that, but the Cullens weren't exactly monsters the way that Percy meant it, "—what could you possibly be thinking?"

I stopped listening not too long after that and just held the phone away from my ear, but close enough so I could still hear his voice, waiting for his rant to end. Charlie came in about halfway through and raised an eyebrow as he saw me with the phone held away from me, but Percy clearly yelling at me on the other end.

"Note to self," I said dryly, "never tell your big brother who lives on the other side of the country that you have a boyfriend."

Charlie sniggered, but covered it up with a cough as he headed over to sit down on the other side of the couch, turning on the game.

Percy never did let up on his rant. A half an hour later, he was still going on and on until finally I had to cut him off and tell him that everything was perfectly fine and that he didn't need to worry about me. "I didn't worry so much about your life," I pointed out.

"That's different," Percy complained. "You've known Annabeth ever since you got to camp."

"Okay, Rachel, then," I argued. "I didn't know her until you showed up with her wanting to help you and Annabeth with that project of yours." Project meaning navigation through the Labyrinth; it can be navigated by a mortal with clear sight. "Percy, you worry way too much about me, you know that? Contrary to popular belief, I _can_ take care of myself."

Percy sighed. "I just worry about you, you know? You're my only sister and I don't want anything to happen to you."

"And nothing is going to happen to me, big brother," I assured him. "You don't have to worry about me. Besides, there comes a certain time in every brother's life when he has to let go of his sister and let her grow up."

"Well, that sucks," Percy joked and I could hear the smile in his voice as he said that.

"You can't protect me every minute of every day, Perce," I told him not unkindly. "But I love you for wanting to."

Percy chuckled. "I love you, little sister," he said. "Oh, by the way, I got an Iris-message from Tyson the other day and he said that he fixed your shield. I'm gonna send it to you as soon as I can."

"Cool, thanks," I said, relieved. The shield that Tyson had made me was damaged during the final battle and Tyson had been working on fixing it.

Tyson was Percy and my half-brother, another son of Poseidon, but he's not a demigod. He's a Cyclops. Percy found him roughly around the same time that I was claimed as a daughter of Poseidon (believe me, people were a little shocked at two children of Poseidon being claimed within a few weeks of each other). He works in the Cyclopes forges and after the final battle, he was appointed a general in the Cyclopes army.

"Does Annabeth know about this?" Percy asked sourly and I knew he was talking about my newly found romance.

"No, she doesn't know about Edward and me, but she does know about him," I answered honestly.

"Right," Percy sighed and I heard someone in the background telling him to get off the phone and get to bed. "I better go."

"Tell your mom that I said hi," I said with a grin.

"Will do," he promised. "Listen, will you please call a lot more often than you have been? I can't help but worry."

"I'll try," I assured him. "Good night."

"Night."

As I hung up the phone and replaced it in the receiver, I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of someone outside of the window, someone staring in with red eyes, gleaming even in the dark night.

With a gasp, I spun around, towards the window, the phone clattering out of my hand as I stared at the window. Charlie just about jumped a mile as he heard my gasp, spinning around to look at me.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, getting to his feet as soon as he saw my unnaturally pale face.

"I . . ." There was no way that I could just explain away what had just happened, not even if I knew how to manipulate the Mist. "It's nothing, I just . . . I thought I saw something outside the window." I hoped that he would buy it and leave it alone, but being a cop, Charlie grabbed his gun and went outside to see if there was anyone there.

"Stay inside," he ordered me. It took all my willpower to keep where I was and not run outside and protect my uncle from whoever—or whatever—had being staring in the window, but after a few minutes, he came back inside, replacing his gun where it belonged.

"There was nothing out there," he assured me. "It must have been a trick of the light or something."

"Right," I said slowly, but an idea was starting to form in my head, realisation dawning on me . . .

The mysterious phone calls that I had been getting lately, where someone would hang up as soon as I answered . . .

The near-accident with Tyler, who had been controlled or compelled by someone or something to hit me with his van . . .

The vampires that were attacking people in Mason County and were slowly heading here . . .

And now, someone with red eyes—which were the colour of vampire eyes unless they hunted animals, like the Cullens—had been at my window, looking in? It couldn't be coincidence.

What if the vampire that was hovering around was _also_ the one who had compelled Tyler to hit me with his van? And what if that same vampire was stalking me?

And if that was true, then why and who? And what did they want with me?


	14. A Visit From a Goddess

**Midnight Star**

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Fourteen: A Visit From a Goddess

Edward did _not_ take the news well when he slipped into my open window that night. I was kind of reluctant to tell him considering that Charlie was sleeping in the next room, but he did keep the explosion minimal. As soon as I told him what I had figured out, his eyes grew black with a mixture of worry and fury and he kept his distance from me until he had gotten his temper under control, staying on the other side of the room until he had reined it in.

And really, who could blame him? The idea that the vampires that had slowly been creeping towards Forks ever since I had arrived in town were actually here because they were after me was not at all comforting.

But even Edward admitted that my logic made sense. I've never been a big believer of coincidences. Two vampires—or at least, they assumed it was only two of them; it could very well be more than that—starting a killing spree almost as soon as I arrive in Forks, someone compelling Tyler to hit me with that van, the weird phone calls that I had been getting lately, and then, tonight, someone looking into my window, someone with red eyes, which was the usual colour of vampires' eyes . . . no way, there was no possible _way_ that it could be mere coincidence.

There was most definitely a connection between the three events. No one could dispute the facts, not once they had been laid out in front of them.

As a result of my discovery, Edward became highly overprotective of me, refusing to let me go anywhere by myself. It was a tad annoying and a little embarrassing to have him fussing over me at every moment. He wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom alone; he had Alice go with me. And he had her watching my every movement, just in case the vampires happened to show up whenever they weren't around.

But even with him being the protective boyfriend—gods, I _loved_ saying that word. It brought a smile to my face every time that I so much as thought it—and a couple of homicidal vampires hanging around, I felt giddy and excited as the homecoming dance drew nearer and I found myself looking forward to going to the dance, which was highly unusual for me. This time was different, though; I was going with the one guy that I actually wanted to spend it with.

Even though I had been forewarned, Alice came over roughly about two hours before Edward was supposed to pick me up to help me get ready. I tried to tell her that I didn't need that long to get ready, but she refused to let me out of her grip. I was practically kept under lock and key as she pinned me to the chair and forced me to stay completely still while she worked her magic.

Charlie probably though that I was being tortured or something, because he knocked on my door more than once just to make sure that everything was all right.

When she was done and turned me around to face the mirror, I barely even recognised myself. It took me a full minute to find any of my own features in the radiant girl's face. My dark brown hair was set in an exotic hairstyle that I never would have been able to do on my own, with wisps of curls falling casually into my face, which she had perfected with just the right touch of make-up. Not too much, but enough to make me gap at my reflection, stunned.

If any of my friends back at camp had seen me, they probably would have fallen over in shock. I _never_ wore make-up and dresses were out of my league. Anyway, it's way too hard to fight monsters when you're in a skirt. I always wondered how Valentine managed.

I descended the steps in my formal attire, climbing down to where Edward and Charlie were waiting for me. Edward gazed at me in a way that no boy had ever looked at me before . . . it was like he was looking at an angel or a goddess.

I blushed crimson as he took my hand, unable to suppress a smile as he tucked my arm underneath his. Charlie had his camera all ready, snapping a few shots for "mementos," as he referred to it, but I had a feeling that he was going to send them to my mom.

Not that she would appreciate the gesture, but he just wanted to remind her that she had another daughter that she had conveniently forgotten about, a daughter who was growing up to be a young woman with her first real boyfriend. Walking into the gymnasium felt like I stepped out of the real world and into a fairy tale as Edward and I stepped into the gym, which had been completely decorated, looking more fit for a ball than a high school dance. It was hard to believe that they could take something so ordinary like the gymnasium and make it as beautiful as they did, but somehow they managed.

As promised, the rest of his siblings were there. As always, Rosalie scowled at me as soon as she saw me, but other than that, she didn't say anything, too busy with Emmett to be concerned with me, which was more of a relief than I wanted to admit. She looked absolutely radiant and the envy of almost every single girl there.

I hardly even noticed anyone else, though, my attention was focused solely on Edward the entire time that we danced together, linked together in perfect harmony, both of us moving as the other one did. If Mike and all of the other boys who'd asked me to the dance were upset about my tiny lie about having a friend coming out of town, I didn't notice. I did feel a teensy bit guilty about having lied to them, but if I had say yes to any of them, I would have felt even more guilty, because I knew that they weren't who I wanted to be with. So basically, it was just a never-ending cycle.

For the first time in almost three days, Edward began to relax, much to my relief. I knew that he had been looking to this dance and going to it with me, which was both flattering and exhilarating. It would have been such a shame for him to miss out on an experience that he had been looking forward to just because a bunch of vampires were looking for me. (I had opted not to tell him "So what else is new?" I didn't think that he would be too happy about the idea that I was _used_ to people hunting me.)

As we sway around the room, barely even noticing anyone else in the room, our eyes on each other, both of us drinking in the sight of the other, Edward said softly, "Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?"

"Maybe once or twice," I replied, smiling. "And you look very handsome yourself, mister."

And it was true; I don't know how it was possibly that he could look even more handsome than he already was, but he managed to pull it off. Of course, he had Alice in the house, who was an even more fashion fanatic than Valentine was, so that might have helped.

It was a night so unlike anything that I had ever experienced before and so away from the supernatural world that I had engulfed myself in for so long . . . even though my boyfriend and I weren't exactly normal, it was nice to be able to have a normal night like that dance. To just go to a dance with my boyfriend . . . it was a night that I never thought I would ever experience and to be completely honest, it was something that I really needed. Forget for a little while that I was the demigod daughter of Poseidon and just be a normal girl, even if it was just for a little while. It was nice . . .

Of course, I should have known that it wouldn't last. I should have known that the normalcy would only last for a little while.

It was the last dance, a soft, wistful tune, filled with longing and hope and joy and happiness. My head was lying on Edward's shoulder as he held me against him, our hands entwined as he took the lead, his eyes closed as his chin lay on top of my crown.

My eyes were halfway closed, just allowing myself to dwell in the moment. Just for that moment, just that one moment, my whole world was perfect and I never wanted it to end.

But that's the thing about perfect moments. Sooner or later, they always end.

And all it took was for those last few chords to stop and my head to lift up and my eyes opened.

There was a woman making her way through the crowd towards Edward and me, her gaze hidden behind sunglasses, but I could sense power from her, even at the distance and I tensed automatically.

Sensing my reaction, Edward pushed me behind him as she approached, a deep growl escaping from deep within his throat.

"Calm yourself, Cold One," the woman said. I frowned as soon as she spoke; something about her voice sounded familiar, as though I had heard it before and not that long ago. "I mean no harm to you or your mate." Edward hesitated, but lowered his defences slightly as she turned to me. "Come with me, Susan Dawson."

"Why?" I asked, not as willing to lower my guard as my boyfriend was.

The woman sighed and turned back to me, lifting her sunglasses to reveal startling grey eyes . . . Annabeth's eyes . . . Stefan's eyes . . . at once, I realised who this was.

"Come with me, Susan Dawson," she said again, inclining her head for me to follow her.

"Who is she?" Edward murmured to me.

I gulped, knowing that this could come from no good. Athena didn't particularly like Percy or me because of an age-old rivalry with our father and she really didn't like the fact that my brother was dating her daughter. Me, she really detested because she thought that I was the reason behind her son's treachery. Besides, gods never sought out heroes for no good reason.

"Athena," I muttered back to him. "I'd better go see what she wants."

Edward tightened his grip on me only for a moment before he released me, obviously recognising that I needed to talk to her or else she would get mad. And you don't want to get a god mad; they tend to blow stuff up when they do. Literally.

Hitching up my skirt, I hurried through the gymnasium, following where Athena had gone to, slipping out the door and saw her waiting outside for me. Taking a deep breath, I made my way towards her.

"You choose your friends very poorly, daughter of Poseidon," she commented coolly, not turning around to face me, her dark hair shimmering underneath the streetlight. "Is it in your nature now to befriend monsters instead of fighting them?"

I took a deep breath, choosing my words very carefully before I spoke. "That depends on your definition of monster, my lady," I said courteously. "I don't believe that what a person is should define them as human or inhuman. Being human isn't about what you are; it's about _who_ you are. And the Cullens have never done anything to hurt me. With all due respect, they are no more monsters than you or I are."

Her lips thinned as she turned to look at me directly. "Perhaps," she responded coolly, "but you walk a thin line when you ally yourself with vampires."

"My lady, I doubt that you sought me out just to discuss our opposite views on my boyfriend and his family," I replied.

"No," Athena agreed. "I suppose you and I will have to agree to disagree on that front, but I would advise you to think long and hard as you go down this path. This is one fork in the road that you can never come back from. Once you go down it, there is no turning back."

"And I have made my decision," I said quietly, a little sick of people trying to tell me what to do when it came to Edward. Billy, Annabeth, and now Athena. I wasn't some little kid who didn't know what she was getting herself into; I was sixteen years old, for crying out loud!

"All the more reason for you to think about that decision," Athena replied coolly. "But I didn't come here to discuss that. I came here to discuss my son."

I raised my eyebrows; of all the things I had expected her to say, I wasn't expecting that. "Stefan?" I sought to confirm and she nodded, watching me closely. "What about him? I haven't seen him since he was banished from camp over a year ago. I don't know where he is and to be honest, I don't really want to see him again."

"That decision is no longer in your hands."

I hesitated, uncertain. "What do you mean?"

"He is looking for you, even now as we speak," Athena replied, her gaze staring off into the distance. "My son has fallen very far since last you saw him . . . so far that I think he may never recover from."

"And you want me to do something about that," I said with a sigh. "Lady Athena, with all due respect, I can't do that."

"Can't or won't?"

There was nothing I could say to that; she wasn't wrong. "Look, Stefan made his choice three years ago, when he decided to ally himself with Luke and the Titans. He made the choice to betray Olympus, betray all of us, and now you want me to help me because he didn't think this all the way through? I'm sorry, I can't do that," I insisted stubbornly. "Let him come after me if he wants, but I can take him. I've fought him before and I'll fight him again, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to help him. He made his choice. And I made mine," I added, turning away from the goddess of wisdom.

"And I would advise you not to turn your back on him," Athena warned me. I stopped where I was. "He has grown more powerful than the last time that you saw him. You won't be able to fight him as you did the last time you defeated him."

Counting silently under my breath in Ancient Greek, I slowly turned around to face Athena again. "Milady, I came here to live as normal a life as possible and I am doing that, with my friends, with my boyfriend. The last thing that I want is to get involved in Stefan Dalloway again. He betrayed me, not the other way around. I'm sorry, but I can't help. If he comes, then he's going to find himself in more trouble than he can get himself out of."

"If any of your . . . friends strike my son down, then I assure you that they will be struck down with him," Athena said quietly.

"It wasn't them that I was talking about," I retorted. "Lady Athena, I made the choice when I was fourteen _not_ to stop Stefan when I had the chance and a lot of people died because of that choice. And now you want me to do what exactly? Save him? I'm sorry, but I think that's beyond our capabilities. If he comes after me or any of my friends, I'm going to stop him by whatever means necessary. He killed Peter and he as good as killed Aria, too. If he hadn't died, she never would have gone back home and she never would have been ensnared into Medusa's lair."

Athena's grey eyes blazed with power as she took a step towards me and I gulped. The last thing I wanted to do was make the goddess of wisdom an enemy, because she could be a terrible enemy. If she wanted to destroy me, then she would get it done and do it in a way that I would never be able to escape from him.

"You chose to ally yourself with vampires, daughter of Poseidon," she said quietly, "and you walk a very thin line. My son has chosen exile and in so doing, he has fallen much further than anyone could have dreamed possible. Certainly I never anticipated it."

"What do you want from me?" I asked in exasperation, throwing up my hands. "Stefan is my enemy now, not my friend. He turned from us a long time ago, before I even met him. He was working with Luke long before I arrived at camp. What do you expect me to do? Stefan turned his back on Olympus before he even met me."

"I am aware of the facts, Susan Dawson," Athena replied. "It has not been so long that I have forgotten the past. I know my son is wilful and headstrong, capable of great destruction if he sets his mind to it, and he was always very good at convincing people to do things, even if they didn't want to do them." If I had been paying a bit more attention to her instead of growing more and more exasperated, then I would have realised that she had been trying to give me a clue. "That has not changed; if anything, it has been amplified. He now walks a similar path to yours."

"What? Has he fallen in love with a vampire too?" I asked, snorting, but Athena wasn't smiling and my laughter fell away quickly. "My lady, what exactly is it that you want me to do? You can't seriously expect me to convince Stefan to go back to camp."

"He would no longer be welcomed there, even if he begged my father's forgiveness for what he has done in the past," Athena said grimly. "Even if Zeus did forgive him for the crimes he committed, Stefan would no longer be welcomed at camp."

"Why?" I asked softly.

"You'll find out soon enough," Athena answered briskly. "Help my son in any way that you can. And if he cannot be stopped, if you cannot make him see sense, then you will have to do what you have to do."

"The ultimate showdown," I said. "Daughter of Poseidon against the son of Athena. It's seems almost poetic," I muttered grimly. Athena didn't smile, but she nodded solemnly. "I don't suppose you want to fill me in on any of the details, do you?"

"Tell me, daughter of Poseidon," Athena said, "why do you always ask questions to which you already know the answer?"

"But I don't know!" I protested. "I don't know what's happened to Stefan or why you're so desperate for my help!"

Athena just gave me a searching look. "I'm putting my trust in you, Susan Dawson," she said quietly. "I would advise you not to let me down. If you cannot save him, then . . ." Her voice trailed off for a moment. "Then I would advise you not to hesitate as you did two years ago. Your blade knows what to do; all you have to do is trust in it."

Before I could protest, she began to glow and I just barely managed to avert my eyes as she transformed into her godly form, which is lethal to any human who gazes upon it, and she disappeared from sight.

* * *

"So who is this Stefan Dalloway anyway?" Edward inquired as we were walking up the hillside towards the clearing that he had taken me to the night that we had learned each other's true identities. The day was sunny and bright, so his family was staying indoors, but as he had promised me that he would show me what he looked like in the sunlight, he showed up at my doorstep bright and early and began driving to our spot.

"He's an old friend," I confessed. I'd told him everything about my conversation with Athena the night before, but hadn't exactly given him all of the details. I wasn't sure how much I should tell him. "He was my first friend at camp, taught me how to use a sword, and showed me the ropes when I was learning the truth about my dad. And when I went on a couple quests, he usually went on them with me. Two years ago, though, we found out that Stefan was spying on the camp for Luke and . . . well, let's say that things didn't end well."

Edward studied my expression carefully. "You loved him," he observed and I was surprised that there was a touch of jealousy etched in his tone.

I shook my head. "No," I protested. "Maybe I _could_ have loved him . . . he and I had been friends for so long that I think we both thought we owed it to ourselves to see if it could become something more, but it never really happened. When I found out he had betrayed me, turned his back on me, and found out that our whole friendship had been a lie . . . it went downhill pretty fast. Half the reason my friends were killed was because he fed information to Kronos about which friends he should go after, which ones would cause me the most pain and which ones I might do anything to save." I sighed, lacing our fingers together. "But even if things had gone a different way, I don't think we would have ended up together. He and I were a bad match from the start. Neither one of us could ever keep our tempers; we would have ended up killing each other. And there just . . . it wasn't passionate," I said at last, stopping and forcing him to look at me. "I love _you_, Edward. You've got nothing to worry about. Not by a long shot," I promised.

He smiled and kissed me, passionately and fervently as wind blew through the trees. "All right," he said, sighing. "So what do you think he wants?"

"Me," I confessed, "dead." Edward growled protectively under his breath, his eyes going pitch black, and I laughed, touching his face gently, pulling the anger away from him as easily as though I were moving water. "You don't need to worry about me; I can take care of myself. Stefan's a good swordsman, but he's got nowhere near my skill. I can take him," I assured him.

"You won't need to," Edward replied firmly. "We'll deal when him when he decides to come."

"Edward, you have enough to worry about with this vampire on the loose," I reminded him. "I'm not some damsel in distress that needs a prince to rescue her. We're a team. Divide and conquer, remember?" I said patiently. "I can deal with Stefan; you just worry about that rogue vampire."

"I don't like it," Edward replied uneasily.

"And you worry too much; have I told you that lately?" I inquired as I moved around him, making my way uphill again. "Besides, Stefan isn't fool enough to try and challenge me here, where my dad has so much influence. Anyone would be crazy to try and kill a daughter of Poseidon here. Now stop worrying; I thought we agreed that this was going to be a worry-free weekend."

"That was before Athena showed up," Edward sighed, but he obeyed, quickening his speed and overtaking me before I had even taken another step, circling around me and scooping me up into his arms, planting a kiss onto my neck. I shivered at the feel of it.

"You play dirty," I muttered as I lay comfortably in his arms while he easily carried me up the hillside, only letting me down when we had reached the clearing at the top of the mountains. The flowers had faded slightly with the coming winter, but were still beautiful, bathed in sunlight.

I smiled as I stepped out into the clearing and turned back to him, where he was remaining in the shadows, his face unreadable as he took a deep, unnecessary breath before closing his eyes and made his way out of the forest that ran around us and stepped out of the shadows, directly into the sunlight and I gasped with shock and surprise.

It was nothing like I could have imagined.

His skin glittered like a thousand diamonds, sparkling and radiating for the whole world to see and it was incredible that no one could see if, even as far up as the mountain as we were. No wonder vampires couldn't go out during the daylight; everyone could see, as soon as the sun touched them, that they weren't normal, that they weren't _human_.

Edward made his way towards me, his expression unreadable as I reached out and touched his skin, marvelling at the way that his skin glittered before I looked back up at him, smiling at him. "I don't see any difference," I whispered to him.

"Then you don't see things clearly," he said quietly. "This is the skin of a killer, Susan, don't forget that."

"And maybe," I replied, "I see things more clearly than you do."

"Quite impossible, seeing as I'm a vampire," he countered, but his glittering face was smiling as he bent down to kiss me and I pulled him closer to me, deepening the kiss as he lowered me into the flowers, gently placing me onto the ground.

We were so immersed in our passion, in our make-out session, that neither one of us noticed that we were being watched.

By a pair of crimson eyes belonging to another vampire standing not so very far away from eyes, watching our every move and plotting his own.

AN: Hey, guys, I'm a really sorry for the long update, but I've been trying to work on my own stories, not fanfiction, so I've kind of been neglecting any stories here. But you have my best friend to thank, because she keeps bugging me to update this story and won't let up until I do so. So I'm going to try to work on this story as well as my own. So let's hope that my muses keep on this one as well as my others.

Anyway, sorry again and please review, because I really love those!

Lady Dawson


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